Assessment of the European socio-economic classification prototype (EseC) : lessons from the French experience

English version of F1005 : In 2006, a team of researchers from seven European countries headed by David Rose and Eric Harrison, with the backing of the U.K. Office for National Statistics, submitted to national statistical institutes (NSIs) a European socio-economic classification project entitled ESeC (for European Socio-economic Classification). Following the reservations voiced mainly by France and the attempts to implement ESeC reported by some NSIs in Bled in June 2006, Eurostat’s Labour Market Unit issued a call for bids to assess the relevance of the ESeC consortium proposal : four countries, including France, offered to examine this issue. INSEE, with the aid of DARES and the Centre Maurice Halbwachs (CMH), has undertaken a range of studies over the years 2008 and 2009, most of them being presented in this document.