Census of Population and Housing 1986: Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO) - Classification and Classified List of Occupations (CCLO) Link File

The 1986 Census of Population and Housing, which was conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on 30 June 1986, collected data on a range of social and demographic topics, including occupations of the employed labour force. Responses to questions on the occupation of employed persons were coded using the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO). The purpose of ASCO is to identify a set of occupations covering all jobs in the Australian economy; to define those occupations in terms of a number of selected attributes; and to group those occupations on the basis of their selected similarity into successively broader categories for purposes of statistical description and analysis. The ASCO classification replaced the Classification and Classified List of Occupations (CCLO) used for previous censuses. The CCLO was used to code occupation data for censuses between 1961 and 1981 inclusive. This classification was originally adapted from the International Standard Classification of Occupation (ISCO), issued in 1958. ISCO was considerably revised in 1968, and the changes made were considered carefully in revising the CCLO for use at the 1971 Census. To facilitate the comparison of occupation data between the 1986 Census and previous censuses, the ABS has developed a quantitative relationship linking the two occupation classifications. Such a quantitative link is necessary because it is not possible to map the new classification onto the old classification at a conceptual level because the philosophical basis of the two classifications is very different. To provide a basis for converting distributions of occupations coded to ASCO to distributions of occupations coded to CCLO, and vice versa, a quantitative link has had to be developed. The ASCO / CCLO Link File was created for the purpose of allowing users to create their own empirically derived link between occupation data produced in previous censuses and occupation data coded to ASCO in the 1986 Census. For the census, this link was developed by coding responses to the occupation questions for a sample of employed persons to both occupation classifications (ASCO and CCLO). The final file consists of a 5 per cent sample of employed persons in all States and Territories (except NSW, where only 2 per cent were sampled).