The Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) standardized 281,355 different occupational titles from sources used up to January 1, 2020. The dataset provides these standardized titles coded with HISCO, HISCLASS, OCC1950, HISCAM, and SOCPO classifications. It was released by Kees Mandemakers and colleagues at the International Institute of Social History (IISG) Amsterdam in 2020.
Use Cases
- Historical analysis of occupational structures based on standardized occupational titles.
- Studying social class and status mobility using the linked HISCLASS and HISCAM classifications.
- Harmonizing historical occupational data across different classification systems like OCC1950 and SOCPO.
- Linking individual life course data from the HSN database to standardized occupational information.
Strengths
- Standardization of 281,355 distinct occupational titles.
- Coding into five major historical and social classifications (HISCO, HISCLASS, OCC1950, HISCAM, SOCPO).
- Derived from the HSN database containing over 85,000 life courses.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to sources used up to January 2020.
Provenance
- Source
- Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) and adjacent projects like LINKS.
- Collection Method
- Occupational titles were standardized into uniform spelling, coded with HISCO, and then linked to other classifications.
- Time Range
- Sources used up to January 1, 2020.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-06-01 06:12:13; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Netherlands