URL: http://ssdc.ucsd.edu/ssdc/cps00002.html

TITLE: Current Population Surveys, 1962-2005: March Annual Demographic Files [CD-ROM]

• STUDYNO = CPS00002 (Unicon Edition)
• SERIES NAME = CPS Utilities
• INVESTIGATOR = Unicon Research Corporation
• DATA TYPE = Numerical survey data
• DATA SOURCE = Personal interviews
• UNIVERSE = Civilian, noninstitutional population of the United States living in housing units and members of the armed forces living in civilian housing units on a military base or in households not on a military base.
• SAMPLING = National probability samples are used in selecting housing units. About 60,000 housing units were contacted each year. Sampling specific to each year are available from codebooks.
• DATE-UPDATED-SSDC = June 05, 2006

STUDY DESCRIPTION: This data collection is a commercially licensed edition of the Current Population Survey March file from 1962-2005. The Annual Demographic March files contain basic labor force and demographic data plus additional data described below on work experience, income, noncash benefits and migration. The CPS Utilities provide data, documentation, and extraction software for Current Population Surveys on CD-ROM. The Census Bureau produces the raw data provided with the CPS Utilities. Although the main purpose of the CPS is to collect information on the employment situation, a secondary purpose is to collect information (age, sex, race, marital status, educational attainment, and family structure) on the demographic status of the population. From time to time additional questions are included on such important subjects as health, education, income, and previous work experience. The statistics resulting from these questions serve to update similar information collected once every 10 years through the decennial census.

Variables for labor force data include employment (farm and nonfarm workers, persons self-employed, unpaid workers, wage and salaried employees), occupation of worker and industry of employment, number of hours worked, major activity last week, and reason for not working. Variables for demographic data include age,sex, race, ethnicity, Spanish origin, marital and family status, household relationship, children, veteran status, years of school completed, and place of residence. Supplementary data include migration, after-tax money income and the value of non-cash benefits (food stamps, school lunch programs, employer-provided group health insurance plans, employer-provided pension plans, personal health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, CHAMPUS or military health care and energy assistance). Data on employment and income refer to the preceding year, and demographic data refer to the time of the survey.

Despite their importance to the research community, the CPS files are inconvenient to use. Problems are especially acute for those attempting to form a time series by piecing together surveys from many different years. Variables change location and length over time, requiring several different program formats to obtain a given set of variables across many years. Old variables are dropped and new ones added. Codings change from time to time, as do the questions from which the variables are derived. The Census-supplied documentation is sometimes incomplete and difficult to interpret, particularly for the older surveys. Determining the universe of respondents for particular questions is frequently not straightforward, requiring researchers to trace through skip patterns on questionnaires.

The CPS Utilities address these deficiencies and difficulties. The CPS Utilities software permits the user to locate relevant variables with relative ease, to produce data files by simply naming variables and years, and to collect and view in compact form all coding, universe and questionnaire information for a variable across all survey years. Moreover, the system provides some information that is not available in the written documentation available from the Census, and it offers uniformly recoded versions of selected variables.

EXTENT OF COLLECTION: The CPS Utilities on CD-ROM include a User Manual, data, data extract software, data dictionaries, variables and variable coding and questionnaires.

• The CPS User's Manual - Guide to using the data, dictionaries and extract software.

UCSD users may access these CD-ROMS's on the SSDC Data Services workstation.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION: CURRENT POPULATION SURVEYS, MARCH 1962-2005 [machine-readable data files]/conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Washington: Bureau of the Census [producer and distributor], 1962-2005. Santa Monica, CA: Unicon Research Corporation [producer and distributor of CPS Utilities], 2005.