Occupational Wages around the World (OWW) Database
|
Richard B. Freeman Harvard University National Bureau of Economic Research London School of Economics |
Remco H. Oostendorp VU Amsterdam Tinbergen Institute |
This
database contains occupational wage data for 164 occupations in 192 countries
from 1953 to 2008. The occupational wage
data are derived from the ILO October Inquiry database for 1983-2008 (http://laborsta.ilo.org) and various ILO publications for 1953-1982 (see Table
1 Freeman and Oostendorp 2000, NBER WP #8058) by calibrating the data into a normalized wage rate
for each occupation. The normalized wages refer to average hourly or monthly
wage rates for adult workers.
DATA
|
OWW3 database |
Stata |
Stata |
ASCII |
|
oww3.zip (9.3 Mb) |
oww3.dta (68 Mb) |
oww3.csv (108 Mb) |
You
will need a major database, statistical program, or programming language to use
these files. This dataset is too large to load completely into MS Excel 2000,
which has a maximum of 65,536 observations, though ACCESS
can be used to read the ASCII datafile. Users without STATA may
be interested in STAT/TRANSFER. This program can translate STATA files into other
formats including other statistical packages, database packages and
spreadsheets. Among statistical packages supports are SPSS, SAS, and Systat.
Documentation
- Technical_document_OWW_1953-2008_release1.0.docx
- Exchange rate sources for OWW 1953-2008
- Working paper w26863
Variable List
The database contains
the following variables (wage variables reported in bold are recommended for use - see the note
below):
|
OWW3 |
Variable Label |
|
y0
|
year
|
|
y1
|
country code (from ILO October Inquiry) |
|
country_code |
country code
(iso3)
|
|
country_name |
country name |
|
y3
|
industry code (from ILO October
Inquiry)
|
|
isic88 |
International Standard Industrial Classification
(ISIC-88) |
|
y4
|
occupation code (from ILO October Inquiry) |
|
isco88 |
International Standard Classification of Occupations
(ISCO-1988) |
|
hw1wl_current |
hourly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), LCU (reported) |
|
hw2wl_current |
hourly: country-specific calibration (lex), LCU (reported) |
|
hw3wl_current |
hourly:
country-specific calibration with imputation (lex),
LCU
(reported)
|
|
hw4wl_current |
hourly: uniform calibration (lex),
LCU (reported) |
|
hw1wl_present |
hourly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), LCU (present-day) |
|
hw2wl_present |
hourly: country-specific calibration (lex), LCU (present-day) |
|
hw3wl_present |
hourly:
country-specific calibration with imputation (lex),
LCU (present-day) |
|
hw4wl_present |
hourly: uniform calibration (lex),
LCU
(present-day)
|
|
hw2wu_current |
hourly: country-specific calibration (uni), LCU (reported) |
|
hw3wu_current |
hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation
(uni), LCU (reported) |
|
hw4wu_current |
hourly: uniform calibration (uni),
LCU (reported) |
|
hw2wu_present |
hourly: country-specific calibration (uni), LCU (present-day) |
|
hw3wu_present |
hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation
(uni), LCU (present-day) |
|
hw4wu_present |
hourly: uniform calibration (uni),
LCU (present-day) |
|
hw1wl_us |
hourly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), US$
|
|
hw2wl_us |
hourly: country-specific calibration (lex),
US$
|
|
hw3wl_us
|
hourly:
country-specific calibration with imputation (lex),
US$ |
|
hw4wl_us |
hourly: uniform calibration (lex),
US$
|
|
hw2wu_us |
hourly: country-specific calibration (uni),
US$
|
|
hw3wu_us |
hourly: country-specific calibration with imputation
(uni), US$ |
|
hw4wu_us |
hourly: uniform calibration (uni),
US$
|
|
mw1wl_current |
monthly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), LCU (reported) |
|
mw2wl_current |
monthly: country-specific calibration (lex), LCU (reported) |
|
mw3wl_current |
monthly:
country-specific calibration with imputation (lex),
LCU (reported) |
|
mw4wl_current |
monthly: uniform calibration (lex),
LCU (reported) |
|
mw1wl_present |
monthly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), LCU (present-day) |
|
mw2wl_present |
monthly: country-specific calibration (lex), LCU (present-day) |
|
mw3wl_present |
monthly:
country-specific calibration with imputation (lex),
LCU (present-day) |
|
mw4wl_present |
monthly: uniform calibration (lex),
LCU
(present-day)
|
|
mw2wu_current |
monthly: country-specific calibration (uni), LCU (reported) |
|
mw3wu_current |
monthly: country-specific calibration with
imputation (uni), LCU (reported) |
|
mw4wu_current |
monthly: uniform calibration (uni),
LCU (reported) |
|
mw2wu_present |
monthly: country-specific calibration (uni), LCU (present-day) |
|
mw3wu_present |
monthly: country-specific calibration with
imputation (uni), LCU (present-day) |
|
mw4wu_present |
monthly: uniform calibration (uni),
LCU (present-day) |
|
mw1wl_us |
monthly: standard data (no calibration) (lex), US$ |
|
mw2wl_us |
monthly: country-specific calibration (lex), US$ |
|
mw3wl_us
|
monthly:
country-specific calibration with imputation (lex),
US$ |
|
mw4wl_us |
monthly: uniform calibration (lex),
US$
|
|
mw2wu_us |
monthly: country-specific calibration (uni), US$ |
|
mw3wu_us |
monthly: country-specific calibration with
imputation (uni), US$ |
|
mw4wu_us |
monthly: uniform calibration (uni),
US$
|
|
exrt_usd
|
exchange rate: LCU (present-day) per US$ |
|
curr_current |
LCU as reported in ILO October
Inquiry
|
|
curr_present |
LCU used at
present
|
|
conv_wage |
conversion rate reported to present-day LCU |
|
select |
source of exchange
rate
|
|
comment |
additional info if nonstandard source of exchange
rate |
|
share_indigenousl |
share of observations reported for indigenous
workers only (lex) |
|
share_europeanl |
share of observations reported for European workers
only (lex) |
|
share_indigenousu |
share of observations reported for indigenous
workers only (uni) |
|
share_europeanu |
share of observations reported for European workers
only (uni) |
|
coveragel |
share of observations reported for entire country (lex) |
|
coverageu |
share of observations reported for entire country (uni) |
|
note_occind_matching |
Note on imputation of occupation and industry |
Calibration Info
Wage data are reported with
variable names PwTwW_C, where P
indicates whether it is an hourly or monthly wage, T the calibration
type, W the weighting type, and C the currency type:
P
{h,m}
Period:
h = hourly wage
m = monthly wage
T{1,2,3,4}
Type:
1 = standard data (no calibration)
2 = country-specific calibration
3 = country-specific calibration with imputation
4 = uniform calibration
W{l,u}
Weighting:
l = lexicographic weighting
u = uniform weighting
C{current,present,us} Currency:
current =
in reported LCU
present =
in present-day LCU
us =
in US$
Note: It is recommended
to start any analysis conservatively with the non-calibrated data (hw1wl_C and
mw1wl_C) and next to use the standardized data Pw2wW_C
and Pw3wW_C (with increasing levels of data calibration /
imputation). The
standardized wage with country-specific calibration and imputation and lexicographic
weighting (hw3wl_C and mw3wl_C) is recommended for use because it provides the
largest sample, it uses country-specific calibration to the extent possible and
it uses lexicographic weights favoring raw data reported in standard format.
The standardized data Pw4wW_C do not use
country-specific calibration and correspond to the standardization variant 2 in
the initial release of the data for 1983-1998 (see NBER Working Paper #8058, table A.1). It is
included for comparison.
QUESTIONS
AND INFORMATION
If
you have any questions about the OWW database please contact:
Remco Oostendorp
VU Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam
email: r.oostendorp@
vu.nl
|
Last update: , 15 March 2020 |