Occupational statistics for Scottish counties and large towns in 1911

Table ID:
OCC_1911_S     (1251915)
Contents:
Occupational statistics for Scottish counties and large towns in 1911
Approx. number of rows:
18,401
Table type:
Raw Data
Documentation Author:
Humphrey Southall
Chronology:
The data are for the single year 1911.

Sources:

  1. This is a complete transcription of the very large Table 22, 'Occupations of males and females aged 10 years and upwards, at eleven groups of ages, and by status', in the County Reports of the 1911 Census of Scotland. Every county includes a table of county totals, and certain counties include additional tabulations for the largest towns.
  2. Also included is a complete transcription of table 26, 'Scotland. Occupations of males and females aged 10 years and upwards, in eleven groups of ages, and by status', in Population, ages, conjugal condition, occupations, birthplaces, housing, Gaelic-speaking, Scotland, 1911, giving national totals. This table orders the columns differently but contains exactly the same information as the county and burgh tables.
  3. These data were originally computerised by the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis at the Queen's University, Belfast, as part of the JISC-funded Historical Population Reports project (HistPop). They were downloaded from the HistPop web site on 8th September 2016 as a set of separate spreadsheets, one for each reporting area. They were then assembled into a single dataset by the GB Historical GIS project, checked and corrected, and this documentation written.


Notes:

  1. Although this data is broadly similar to the 'occ_1911_lg_t' table covering counties and large towns in England and Wales, and uses the same occupational classification, its detailed organisation is quite different:
    • It uses a different and slightly simpler set of age groups.
    • Where the England and Wales table lists marital status for women, the Scottish table lists occupational status for both men and women: "Working at Home", "Employer", "Working for Employers", "Working on own Account" and "Others or not stated". Note that the latter four categories, where reported, sum to the overall total of the relevant gender, but "Working at Home" is separate.
    • The Scottish table simply lists the individual occupational categories, rather than listing broader categories and selected narrower ones, which greatly simplifies working with it. This difference means that a different occupation codebook had to be created, and as the Scottish data in practice use a more detailed classification this introduces some differences in how the data are re-classified. For example, with the Scottish data it is more often possible to identify "Dealers", who is 1911 were grouped with people making the relevant commodity but in more recent classifications such as 2007 are grouped into retail or wholesale trade. Consequently, the size of the latter sectors will be slightly larger in Scotland than in England and Wales.
  2. As originally published, the table is organised into Orders, denoted by roman numerals, sub-orders which have numbering placing them within the relevant Order, starting from 1 each time, and individual occupations, all of which are numbered in a single series from "1. Post Office - Officers, Clerks, Telegraphists, Telephone Operators" to "403. Others". However, no counts are given for the Orders and sub-Orders, so the table as held here contains rows for each individual occupation, each including order_number and suborder_number, and all with occup_level = 3, plus just three overall totals which have order_number = 0 and occup_level = 0:
    • Total Occupied (Orders I.-XXII.)
    • Total of Unspecified or No Occupation (Order XXIII.)
    • Total enumerated, aged 10 years and upwards
    See below for how these have been used for checking.
  3. The table holds data for the following kinds of unit, identified by area_type:
    • Nation (1 area): i.e. Scotland total.
    • County (33 areas): The report is very clear that these data always excludes the populations of the four cities.
    • City (4 areas): i.e. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen.
    • Burgh (22 areas): basis for selection unclear, but the following are included: Airdrie, Arbroath, Ayr, Clydebank, Coatbridge, Dumbarton, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Govan, Greenock, Hamilton, Inverness, Kilmarnock, Kirkcaldy, Leith, Motherwell, Paisley, Partick, Perth, Rutherglen, Stirling and Wishaw.


Checking:

  1. It is clear that substantial checking work was done by CDDA, as the numerical inconsistencies we found were mostly errors in the original reports, especially numbers that were missing, i.e. blank. The original reports marked empty categories by printing a hyphen, so where a column was completely empty this indicated a printing error and we generally inserted the value implied by the column totals. Once those corrections had been made, the following inconsistencies remained.
  2. Comparing listed totals for males with the sum of the age categories:
    • Argyll county totals, "367. Drainage and Sanitary Service", reported total = 9, computed = 8.
    • Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, "237. Other Workers in Wood", reported total = 2, computed = 3; then on the next row, "238. Timber, Wood, Cork, Bark - Merchants, Dealers", reported total = 6, computed = 5, so a value is in the wrong row but impossible to say which.
    • Forfar county totals, "318. Clothiers, Outfitters - Dealers", reported total = 38, computed = 39.
    • Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, "42. Domestic Indoor Servants in Hotels, Lodging-Houses, Eating-Houses", reported total = 6, computed = zero.
  3. Comparing listed totals for males with the sum of the status categories:
    • Scotland national totals, "284. Cotton - Spinning Processes", reported total = 456, computed = 454.
    • Aberdeen City, "126. Stone - Cutters, Dressers", reported total = 1844, computed = 1842.
  4. Comparing listed totals for females with the sum of the age categories, there are no discrepancies.
  5. Comparing listed totals for females with the sum of the status categories:
    • Edinburgh City, "53. Laundry Workers ; Washers, Ironers, Manglers, &c.", reported total = 1707, computed = 1717.
    • Glasgow City, "53. Laundry Workers ; Washers, Ironers, Manglers, &c.", reported total = 1680, computed = 1699.
    • Glasgow City, "230. Furniture, &c., Dealers", reported total = 126, computed = 136.
    • Glasgow City, "246. Earthenware, China, Glass - Dealers", reported total = 218, computed = 219.
    • Glasgow City, "271. Dealers in Skins, Leather, Hair, and Feathers", reported total = 34, computed = 36.
    • Glasgow City, "363. Waiters (not Domestic) ; others in Inn, Hotel, Eating House - Service", reported total = 1567, computed = 1565.
    • Edinburgh [Midlothian] county total, "323. Glove Makers", reported total = 14, computed = 4.
  6. Comparing the listed totals for "Total Occupied (Orders I.-XXII.)" with computed sums of all individual occupations in Orders 1 to 22:
    • Aberdeenshire county totals, reported total for males = 47564, computed = 47563, i.e. difference of 1.
    • Berwickshire county totals, reported total for males = 9543, computed = 9542, i.e. difference of 1.
    • Stirlingshire county totals, reported total for females = 13427, computed = 13422, i.e. difference of 5.
    N.B. the lack of totals for individual Orders made direct correcting of these errors impossible, unless they tied in with row-wise inconsistencies.
  7. Comparing the listed totals for "Total of Unspecified or No Occupation (Order XXIII.)" with computed sums of all individual occupations in Order 23, no inconsistencies exist.
  8. Comparing the only two sub-totals, for "Total Occupied (Orders I.-XXII.)" and for "Total of Unspecified or No Occupation (Order XXIII.)", with the listed overall totals for "Total enumerated, aged 10 years and upwards", no inconsistencies exist.


Columns within table:

ColumnTypeContents
sco_cnty Text string (max.len.=70). Name of the Scottish County to which the data relate. The national total data from table 26 have this value as 'SCOTLAND'.
area_name Text string (max.len.=16). Name of the area to which the data relate. This is specified as TOTAL for county and national totals, and otherwise contains the names of burghs.
area_type Text string (max.len.=10). Type of area. See note above.
cnty_unit Integer number. ID number for the Scottish County containing the unit, as defined in the AUO. Set for all reporting areas except the Scotland totals.
g_unit Integer number. ID number for the reporting area, as defined in the AUO. This is set for all rows, but is identical to cnty_unit for county totals.
page_number Integer number. Page number within the report from which this row of data was taken. Table 22 is of course interleaved with many other tables, so these page numbers are highly discontinuous.
row_number Integer number. Number placing rows in correct order within each reporting unit, and linking to the 1911 Occupation Codebook.
occup_level Integer number. Number between 0 and 5:
  1. Used only for the overall "TOTAL OCCUPIED AND UNOCCUPIED" row.
  2. Used for "Retired or Unoccupied (Order XXIII.)" and "Engaged in Occupations (Orders I.-XXII.)" at the start of the table, and for the totals for each Order. However, note that all of the latter have been deleted except for "VIII. FISHING." as no actual data were given for them.
  3. Used for the numbered sub-Orders.
  4. Used for other non-numbered categories which were always reported, and which contribute to the overall total occupied.
  5. Used for more detailed categories which are printed in italics and appear only for some areas. These do not contribute to the overall total occupied, so need to be excluded in simple calculations using these data.
order_number Integer number. Number of the occupation Order the current category is in.
suborder_number Integer number. Number of the current sub-Order. Unlike the England and Wales table, all Orders other than 22 have sub-Order values, although in several cases there is only one sub-Order within an Order.
occupation Text string (max.len.=104). Label for the current occupational category, whatever its level.
m_tot Integer number. Total Males.
m_10_13 Integer number. Number of males aged 10 to 13.
m_14 Integer number. Number of males aged 14.
m_15 Integer number. Number of males aged 15.
m_16 Integer number. Number of males aged 16.
m_17 Integer number. Number of males aged 17.
m_18_19 Integer number. Number of males aged 18 to 19.
m_20_24 Integer number. Number of males aged 20 to 24.
m_25_44 Integer number. Number of males aged 25 to 44.
m_45_64 Integer number. Number of males aged 45 to 64.
m_65_69 Integer number. Number of males aged 65 to 69.
m_70_up Integer number. Number of males aged 70 and upwards.
m_age_ns Integer number. Number of males age not stated.
m_at_home Integer number. Number of males with occupational status 'Working at Home'.
m_employer Integer number. Number of males with occupational status 'Employers'.
m_employee Integer number. Number of males with occupational status 'Working for Employers'.
m_self Integer number. Number of males with occupational status 'Working on own Account'.
m_other Integer number. Number of males with occupational status 'Others or no Statement'.
f_tot Integer number. Total Females.
f_10_13 Integer number. Number of females aged 10 to 13.
f_14 Integer number. Number of females aged 14.
f_15 Integer number. Number of females aged 15.
f_16 Integer number. Number of females aged 16.
f_17 Integer number. Number of females aged 17.
f_18_19 Integer number. Number of females aged 18 to 19.
f_20_24 Integer number. Number of females aged 20 to 24.
f_25_44 Integer number. Number of females aged 25 to 44.
f_45_64 Integer number. Number of females aged 45 to 64.
f_65_69 Integer number. Number of females aged 65 to 69.
f_70_up Integer number. Number of females aged 70 and upwards.
f_age_ns Integer number. Number of females age not stated.
f_at_home Integer number. Number of females with occupational status 'Working at Home'.
f_employer Integer number. Number of females with occupational status 'Employers'.
f_employee Integer number. Number of females with occupational status 'Working for Employers'.
f_self Integer number. Number of females with occupational status 'Working on own Account'.
f_other Integer number. Number of females with occupational status 'Others or no Statement'.
rec_num Integer number. Sequence number keeping rows in order they were loaded in.