Who had an occupation? Changing Boundaries in Historical U.S. Census Data

?Bei welchen Personen ist der Beruf bekannt? Wandelnde Katego riengrenzen in der amerikanischen Volksz?hlung?. The original official pur pose of the U.S. Census was to gather information to design political districts of approximately the same size. Increasingly Census data has been used for de scriptive and social scientific purposes. This paper examines how the category of "occupation" has changed and looks at several issues which arise in compar ing the present day workforce with the workforce in past decades. Changes in concepts, practices, and historical context have greatly affected how many per sons were recorded as having occupations, especially for married women, American Indians, teenagers, and people who have ceased paid work.