Occupation, Education and Social Inequalities: A Case Study Linking Survey Data Sources to an Urban Microsimulation Analysis

This chapter describes how a dynamic microsimulation model of the urban population, initiated from census data, can be productively linked with rich socio-economic survey data resources in order to give a more effective understanding of the development of occupations and educational qualifications through time and hence socio-economic inequalities. Small area modelling of these elements is a key feature of understanding labour markets and hence the distribution of employment. A selection of strategies for linking data resources are discussed, some analytical results presented, and discussion given on how these approaches can be facilitated by the ‘NeISS’ infrastructural provision. In the urban simulation model, the city is represented as a complete but synthetic array of households and their constituent individuals. The model is capable of projections forward in time through the incorporation of demographic processes relating not only to the major events of fertility, mortality and migration, but also the formation and dissolution of households and changes in individual health status. The model is operational for every city or region in Great Britain. The chapter looks at how this model can be linked with survey data from the British Household Panel Survey, and the combined results used to explore the evolution of two major socio-economic variables – occupation and education – within the microsimulation model in a manner designed to engage with extended research traditions in the sociological study of social stratification.