Possibilities and limits of quantitative occupational research at the IAB : a stock-taking

Abstract

"Occupational research at the IAB is an essential part of the legal task of the Federal Employment Services to carry out 'labour market and occupational research'. In this legal and institutional context, occupational research was designed from the start in such a way that all the research sections of the IAB were also concerned or were intended to be concerned with issues relevant to occupation. Occupational research received its concrete form, however, above all in the section 'occupation and skills research'. This article describes the 'concepts of quantitative occupational research' at the IAB which constitute fundamental principles of the work in this research section. The way this field is distinguished from other fields of research, in particular compared with occupational descriptions, is made clear, and both the limits and the possibilities of IAB-specific, quantitative occupational research are described. Occupational research has always had a particular connection to the specialist tasks of the Federal Employment Services, which is why it is predominantly application-oriented. The article is partly an overall view of fundamental aspects of occupational research in the IAB, which have already been described in other contexts." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Dostal, W., Parmentier, K. & Schade, H. (1999): Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der quantitativen Berufsforschung im IAB. Eine Bestandsaufnahme. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 32, No. 1, p. 41-60.