Home > Data and documentation > Main Survey > Variables

Mainstage Variable

mrjsemp

Employee or self emp., most recent job

Datafile

indresp

Index term

Employment: Labour Force Status

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	459	3.18%
proxy	-7	108	0.75%
Never had a job	-3	593	4.11%
Employee	1	11732	81.36%
Self-employed	2	1527	10.59%
	Total	14419	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	464	3.12%
proxy	-7	102	0.69%
Never had a job	-3	581	3.91%
Employee	1	12149	81.68%
Self-employed	2	1577	10.6%
	Total	14873	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	543	3.53%
proxy	-7	127	0.83%
Never had a job	-3	557	3.62%
Employee	1	12542	81.48%
Self-employed	2	1623	10.54%
	Total	15392	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	298	1.91%
proxy	-7	160	1.02%
Never had a job	-3	518	3.32%
Employee	1	12980	83.11%
Self-employed	2	1661	10.64%
	Total	15617	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	429	2.72%
proxy	-7	349	2.21%
Never had a job	-3	319	2.02%
Employee	1	13048	82.63%
Self-employed	2	1646	10.42%
	Total	15791	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	364	2.24%
proxy	-7	326	2.01%
Never had a job	-3	409	2.52%
Employee	1	13459	82.89%
Self-employed	2	1680	10.35%
	Total	16238	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	341	2.05%
proxy	-7	325	1.96%
Never had a job	-3	458	2.76%
Employee	1	13794	83.11%
Self-employed	2	1679	10.12%
	Total	16597	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	315	1.67%
proxy	-7	264	1.4%
Never had a job	-3	665	3.52%
Employee	1	15767	83.57%
Self-employed	2	1856	9.84%
	Total	18867	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	248	1.59%
proxy	-7	184	1.18%
Never had a job	-3	501	3.21%
Employee	1	13155	84.31%
Self-employed	2	1515	9.71%
	Total	15603	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	67	0.43%
proxy	-7	149	0.95%
Never had a job	-3	687	4.4%
Employee	1	13212	84.57%
Self-employed	2	1508	9.65%
	Total	15623	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	57	0.52%
proxy	-7	128	1.17%
Never had a job	-3	379	3.48%
Employee	1	9231	84.64%
Self-employed	2	1111	10.19%
	Total	10906	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	80	0.71%
proxy	-7	133	1.19%
Never had a job	-3	430	3.84%
Employee	1	9408	84.05%
Self-employed	2	1142	10.2%
	Total	11193	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	47	0.5%
proxy	-7	109	1.15%
Never had a job	-3	426	4.51%
Employee	1	7800	82.64%
Self-employed	2	1056	11.19%
	Total	9438	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	49	0.53%
proxy	-7	159	1.72%
Never had a job	-3	396	4.28%
Employee	1	7633	82.53%
Self-employed	2	1012	10.94%
	Total	9249	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	43	0.45%
proxy	-7	148	1.56%
Never had a job	-3	406	4.28%
Employee	1	7828	82.57%
Self-employed	2	1056	11.14%
	Total	9481	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	40	0.42%
proxy	-7	228	2.38%
Never had a job	-3	423	4.41%
Employee	1	7850	81.77%
Self-employed	2	1059	11.03%
	Total	9600	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	43	0.44%
proxy	-7	138	1.4%
Never had a job	-3	446	4.53%
Employee	1	8155	82.83%
Self-employed	2	1063	10.8%
	Total	9845	100.0%

Value label	Value	Absolute frequency	Relative frequency
missing	-9	62	0.6%
proxy	-7	133	1.3%
Never had a job	-3	470	4.58%
Employee	1	8538	83.18%
Self-employed	2	1061	10.34%
	Total	10264	100.0%

Code creator
0

Create your own Stata code to extract data from the main end user licence Understanding Society dataset. Find out more

Saved variables

What else is Understanding Society doing?

A family celebrating

Understanding Society Wave 15

The latest wave of UKHLS is now available from the UK Data Service

Ariel view of a UK town

Understanding Society Wave 15 – what can data users expect?

The latest wave of data is out, so what’s included and what’s changed in this release?

Sushi Rolls not Gender Roles by Jeanne Menjoulet

Understanding Society used for Gender Equality Index

New tool measures men’s and women’s socioeconomic outcomes across UK

Photo of talk at an Understanding Society conference

Understanding Society Biosocial Conference 2026: combining biological and social data

A call for abstracts is now open - present your research at our Biosocial Conference

Email newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter

ESRC Institute for Social and Economic Research University of Essex

The Economic and Social Research Council is the primary funder of the study
The Study is led by a team at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex.