The Division of Labor: Conceptualization and Related Measures

The division of labor refers to differences among members of a population in their sustenance activi-ties and the related functional interdependence. It is proposed that the first dimension of the division of labor, sustenance differentiation, may be measured with data on occupational composition. Six alternative measures are presented and evaluated. Emphasis is placed on the attention each gives to the two aspects of sustenance differentiation: structural differentiation (number of classes) and distribu-tive differentiation (distribution of individuals among the classes). The notion of a division of labor has had a strange history in the social sciences. In light of classical studies by Adam Smith (1776) and Emile Durkheim (1893), no economist or so-ciologist would question the importance of the phenomenon. But since these two classics did not engender a viable tradition of research and theory, there has been little progress in the conceptualization or measurement of the divi-sion of labor. (See the recent commentary b