IPUMS USA: County Variable Name Changes

“What’s in a name? That which we call a COUNTYFIPS by any other name would still be accurate” ~ Steve Shakespeare (the lesser known, quantitative Shakespeare).

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Though, when you are sharing your variable names with tens of thousands of researchers who really just want their analysis to work you may want to be cautious about changing variable names. This is exactly the reason our (now re-named) COUNTY variable held onto that moniker for so long. And when you do change variable names you better try your hardest to let everyone know, so let’s start with that part.

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How Historical Data Become Public

Six Census Bureau employees sitting and working at desks
1950 Census Bureau employees photographing records from the 1900 census for storage on microfilm. Photo: U.S. Census Bureau

An enormous amount of information about the characteristics and activities of ordinary people is just waiting to make its debut for researchers to analyze — two billion people and their households, spanning over 100 countries, from 1703 to the present day. All these data will be available for computer analysis by the general public, for free, by 2018.

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