Emerging Occupations

When Does a Job Become an Occupation?

People sometimes talk about "emerging occupations," but I have not seen a lot written about exactly how a new occupation emerges. I see it as an evolutionary process similar to Darwinian evolution in some ways. And although people who reject Darwinian evolution like to argue that nobody has ever seen a species evolve, I've witnessed occupations evolving.

To understand what happens when an occupation emerges, let's first consider the biological process in which a species emerges: speciation. The watershed of speciation occurs when two populations of organisms, previously considered as belonging to the same species, stop interbreeding. This most commonly occurs because of geographic separation, as when one group ends up on an island, but it may also occur because of behavioral separation, as when one group becomes nocturnal while the other remains diurnal, or when the two groups begin to specialize in different sources of food. After some time passes with little contact between them, random genetic drift reinforces the separation, so that even if they resume contact they may have lost mating behavior patterns or even the ability to produce nonsterile offspring. Now interbreeding is no longer possible or fruitful, and we have two species

Occupations also become defined as distinct when two groups of workers reach a situation similar to lack of interbreeding--when people cannot easily move from one group to the other. The barrier to mobility may occur when work tasks become so different that few people can master both sets of knowledges and skills. For example, when automobiles first appeared, they were repaired by bicycle mechanics--until cars became sufficiently complex that it made more sense for apprentice mechanics to specialize in one vehicle or the other. It is possible, of course, for an accomplished bicycle mechanic to study auto repair and become an auto mechanic, but the amount of preparation required defines this career move as a transition to a new occupation.

How much career preparation is enough to be considered a barrier and therefore to define an occupation? It may be only a few days' or weeks' worth of on-the-job training. The height of the barrier may be emphasized by the existence of a specialized academic or training program, however brief, or by the imposition of a certification exam or licensure requirement.

One example that comes to mind is information scientists. Twenty-five years ago this seemed to be an emerging occupation with a great future. Increasing amounts of information were being made available in online databases, but in those pre-Internet days only experts were able to access and integrate the information. People increasingly needed help finding and using online information to accomplish various research and business tasks, so it seemed that an occupation was taking shape to fill this need. The workers would be more high-tech than librarians, but less conversant with computer code than systems analysts.

The occupation did in fact emerge, but it remains tiny and poorly defined. In the SOC taxonomy that is used by the government to classify occupations, the closest title consists of a combination of information scientists with another occupation: Computer and Information Scientists, Research. Note also that the Wikipedia entry for "information science" does not contain the phrase "information scientists." The British career information system Prospects lists and describes it as a career, but the occupational description points out that these workers are "almost indistinguishable" from librarians.

In fact, librarians have taken over most of the tasks of helping people access and use information. They have become more skilled with technology, and simultaneously information-retrieval tasks have become less technically challenging with the arrival of user-friendly platforms such as the World Wide Web. Information scientists are still needed, especially for research and development of new information systems. But it is noteworthy that in academic departments you will usually find information science bundled with some other discipline: "Computer and Information Science" or "Library and Information Science." It seems that the information scientist specialization has had difficulty creating a unique path to occupational entry that would allow it to break away from other, better-known fields and develop an identity of its own.

A specialization that seems to be having greater success at evolving into an occupation is the construction financial manager. Construction is a huge industry and employs large numbers of accountants, comptrollers, and other financial managers, but the typical freshly-minted accounting graduate is not prepared to deal with the complex regulations and procedures associated with the industry. For example, there is the tricky matter of setting a value on a building that is half-finished.

One of the significant signs that an occupation is emerging is that it develops its own professional organization, which in turn develops a certification exam so that applicants can demonstrate their command of the skills and knowledges necessary to function in the specialization. Typically the organization also sets out a code of conduct for its members or those whom it certifies. I worked briefly for the organization that has been serving this role for construction financial managers, and I witnessed this process in action.

In evolutionary biology, one of the advantages of speciation for a population is that it can exploit an ecological niche that its relatives cannot. For example, in the Galapagos Islands, certain finch species have developed very robust beaks that allow them to crack open hard seeds that are inedible by finch species with more delicate beaks.

Similarly, in the world of occupations, having very robust skills in a specialized topic may allow an occupation to exploit an economic niche. For example, only lawyers are supposed to have the arcane knowledge that is needed to make sense of a complex contract.

Of course, some people may believe that they have sufficient skill to be able to advise other people about simple legal matters, such as the wording of a simple will. But lawyers want to maintain their competitive advantage--want to be in sole possession of their economic niche--and there certainly is a risk to the public if unqualified people give legal advice, so lawyers are licensed, and we who lack licensure cannot be paid to give legal advice.

Licensure, like certification, thus marks the watershed between an occupation and all other workers, making occupational mobility more difficult. It is interesting to note that when licensure is easy to obtain, occupations sometimes need to create additional barriers to entry. Here in New Jersey, you can obtain a real estate salesperson's license if you are over 18, have a high school diploma, take a 75-hour course, pass an exam, and apply through a sponsoring real estate broker. This is a fairly low barrier to entry for the occupation, considering the earnings that are possible, so the National Association of Realtors created a pseudo-occupation, Realtor(R), with higher barriers to entry.

One aspect of Darwin's ideas that many people overlook is sexual selection. This refers to traits (often visual) that are passed on within a species not because they have survival value but because, for whatever reason, they cause an animal to have greater success in attracting a mate. A good example is the male peacock's tail.

Does anything analogous happen in the world of work? It's true that some nonfunctional costumes define occupations. For example, lawyers and judges in Britain still wear wigs, although the practice seems to be dying out in other Commonwealth countries. In many countries, lawyers and judges both wear robes as well, but here in the U.S. only judges still do. Nurse's caps have disappeared here. College professors wear academic robes, hoods, and mortarboards only on graduation day.

Some of these occupational costumes may have been functional in the past, as a firefighter's helmet still is today. But for centuries now, legal wigs and robes have served only to lend gravity to courtroom proceedings, or perhaps as a sign of occupational prestige. Nonfunctional occupational costuming has never really acted as a barrier to occupational entry--anybody could purchase a judge's robe--so it is not really analogous to sexual selection as a way of marking that an occupation has emerged. Instead, occupational emergence depends on actual barriers to entry, such as a unique academic preparation route or licensure.