Occupational intelligence as a measure of occupational complexity

We examine the construct validity of occupational intelligence – the average intelligence of the individuals working in a certain occupation – as a measure of occupational complexity. We show that it is highly correlated with traditional occupational analysts' based measures of occupational complexity (DOT and O*NET based measures), and considerably less so with occupational pay – the average pay of the individuals working in each occupation. We also show that the interaction between individual intelligence and occupational intelligence in predicting pay is similar to the interaction between individual intelligence and traditional measures of occupational complexity. We discuss the advantages of using occupational intelligence as a measure of occupational complexity when compared to the two traditional analysts' based measures.