Have you ever wanted to include a Current Population Survey (CPS) variable in your analysis that isn’t available in IPUMS CPS? Maybe you have even gone through the drudgery of merging original CPS data onto your IPUMS CPS extract. Well, no more! IPUMS CPS is now offering original basic monthly CPS data as unharmonized variables to save you the trouble. And we’re not stopping there — ASEC and topical supplement unharmonized variables are in the pipeline!
Data Projects
IPUMS Time Use Research in Action
This past month, the IPUMS Time Use team attended the International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR) meetings, which were held in Washington, DC from July 10-12. The meetings were engaging and inspiring, and there were many papers featuring IPUMS Time Use data. We love seeing our data being used! This blog post features some of the research that was powered by IPUMS.
In the Archive: “25 Years of IPUMS Data”
“25 Years of IPUMS Data,” the current IPUMS/MPC archive exhibit, highlights a dynamic quarter center history of data innovation at the University of Minnesota. In the late 1980s, the Social History Research Laboratory at the University of Minnesota’s History Department proposed “the creation of a single integrated microdata series composed of public use samples for every year … with the exception of the 1890 census, which was destroyed by fire.” The primary aim was to make the U.S. census microdata “as compatible over time as possible while losing little, if any, of the detail in the original datasets” (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: A Prospectus).
IPUMS DHS Adds Men as a New Unit of Analysis
Women’s decisions about childbearing and healthy behaviors occur within family and community contexts. That’s why IPUMS DHS is excited to announce its most recent achievement: the incorporation of men as a unit of analysis!
New to IPUMS Time Use and IPUMS MEPS: Rectangularizing Down
Don’t be a square—rectangularize!
Introducing…the option to rectangularize down for extracts in IPUMS Time Use and IPUMS MEPS.
What do we mean by “rectangularize”?
New Course using IPUMS PMA and IPUMS DHS Data
Professor Kathryn Grace (geography) is providing a unique opportunity for students to conduct independent research this semester through a brand-new course, “Applied Quantitative Methods Using Survey Data.” In the course, which is open to both graduates and undergraduates, students develop a research question related to global health and, using IPUMS PMA or IPUMS DHS data, learn the steps for answering it.
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.