IPUMS – Use It for Good

IPUMS FAQ: What are Virtual Office Hours?

March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 by mpcblog

by Amy Grotsun and Kari Williams

While scrolling through an IPUMS email or checking up on the latest IPUMS tweets you may have read about IPUMS Virtual Office Hours. You also probably wondered, “What even are virtual office hours?” Today we are here to answer that question.

In the wake of canceled conferences during spring of 2020, IPUMS wanted to create an opportunity to connect with data users about questions they might have when using the data–the kind of thing you might pop by the exhibit hall booth to ask. We found that we connected with virtual conference attendees as expected, but many other IPUMS data users as well. As in-person conferences resume, we will continue to host virtual office hours quarterly so we can continue connecting with a broad range of IPUMS users.

IPUMS at ICFP2022

November 30, 2022 by mpcblog

by Devon Kristiansen

IPUMS was proud to partake in the International Conference on Family Planning in Pattaya City, Thailand. We participated by hosting a pre-conference workshop, sponsoring the conference, staffing an exhibit both, and presenting research as part of the conference program. The conference, held between November 14th and 17th, 2022, had 3,500 in-person attendees, with many virtual participants, as well.

Research staff representing IPUMS PMA, IPUMS DHS, IPUMS MICS, and IPUMS International conducted a 2-hour pre-conference workshop, providing participants with an overview of each of the IPUMS data collections featuring international data as well as a website and data analysis demonstration.

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Impacted the 2020 ACS 1-year PUMS Data

April 1, 2022March 31, 2022 by mpcblog

By Danika Brockman and Megan Schouweiler

One of the highlights of the past IPUMS USA release was the 2020 ACS 1-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) file. Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on 2020 ACS data collection and data quality, the Census Bureau did not release the standard PUMS data. Instead, they released the 2020 ACS 1-year data with experimental weights designed to account for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on data quality. In this blog post, we discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 2020 ACS and the development of the experimental weights, and we provide some recommendations for using the 2020 ACS 1-year PUMS file.

Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Data Collection and Data Quality and the Development of the Experimental Weights

The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted data collection for the 2020 ACS. All methods of data collection were either shut down or significantly reduced from March 2020 through the end of the year. Data collection for group quarters was particularly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic; in-person visits to group quarter facilities were suspended or greatly reduced from March 2020 through the end of the year, and telephone interviews were not conducted due to logistical constraints. Beyond the impacts to data collection methods, the 2020 ACS had significant variability across the 2020 data collection year in response rates for both housing units and group quarters, and had the lowest overall response rate in the history of the ACS¹.