Programme For International Student Assessment Pisa / Sample Reading Passage 4: Labour


The tree diagram below shows the structure of a country's labour force or 'working-age population'. 

The total population of the country in 1995 was about 3.4 million. 

The Labour Force Structure year ended 31 March 1995 (000s)1 


1. Numbers of people are given in thousands (000s). 
2. The working-age population is defined as people between the ages of 15 and 65. 
3. People 'Not in labour force' are those not actively seeking work and/or not available for work. 
Source: D. Miller, Form 6 Economics, ESA Publications, Box 9453, Newmarket, Auckland, New Zealand, p. 64. 

Use the information about a country's labour force shown above to answer the questions below. 

Non MCQ Questions: 

1. How many people of working age were not in the labour force? (Write the number of people, not the  percentage.) 

2. In which part of the tree diagram, if any, would each of the people listed in the table below be included? 

Show your answer by placing a cross in the correct box in the table. 


The first one has been done for you. 

A part-time waiter, aged 35 
'In labour  force:  employed' 
'In labour  force:  unemployed' 
'Not in  labour  force' 
Not  included  in any  categoryyy 
A business woman, aged 43, who works a sixtyhour  week 
A full-time student, aged 21 
A man, aged 28, who recently sold his shop and is  looking for work 
A woman, aged 55, who has never worked or  wanted to work outside the home 
A grandmother, aged 80, who still works a few  hours a day at the family's market stall 

3. Suppose that information about the labour force was presented in a tree diagram like this every year. 

Listed below are four features of the tree diagram. Show whether or not you would expect these features to  change from year to year, by circling either 'Change' or 'No change'. The first one has been done for you. 



Features of Tree Diagram - Answer 
The labels in each box (e.g. 'In labour force') Change / No change 
The percentages (e.g. '64.2%') Change / No change 
The numbers (e.g. '2656.5') Change / No change 
The footnotes under the tree diagram Change / No change 
 



What are the two main groups into which the working-age population is divided?

In the labour force and not in the labour force.
Employed and unemployed.
Full-time workers and part-time workers.
Of working age and not of working age.

The information about the labour force structure is presented as a tree diagram, but it could have been presented in a number of other ways, such as a written description, a pie chart, a graph or a table. The tree diagram was probably chosen because it is especially useful for showing

The size of each group.
Categories within each group.
Changes over time.
The size of the country\'s total population.