2022 Data-Intensive Research Conference

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By Kari Williams

Registration is now open for the 2022 Data-Intensive Research Conference, being held July 20-21 in person in Minneapolis, MN and online. This event is sponsored by the Network for Data-Intensive Research on Aging (NDIRA), part of the University of Minnesota’s Life Course Center (which is co-located with IPUMS).

The conference will feature research presentations and discussions focused on the 2022 theme: Contextualizing Work and Health across the Life Course. The program includes research that leverages large-scale population data (including some #poweredbyIPUMS work) to explore these concepts. Here’s a sneak peak at the conference program. We are excited for research that digs into many different aspects of work (paid work, caregiving, labor market transitions) and health (health behaviors, health conditions, disability, wellbeing) with a life course perspective.

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IPUMS International 2022 Data Release

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By Jane Lyon Lee, IPUMS International

IPUMS International has added 7 new census samples and new labor force surveys including the first-time data release from the Slovak Republic and historical samples from Egypt 1848 and 1868. The other newly added samples extend pre-existing series. The growing IPUMSI labor force survey collection has expanded with the addition of quarterly surveys from Mexico (ENOE 2005-2020) and more data from Spain & Italy. See a summary of the full IPUMS collection on the IPUMSI samples page.

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IPUMS Announces 2021 Research Award Recipients

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IPUMS research awardsIPUMS is excited to announce the winners of its annual IPUMS Research Awards. These awards honor the best published research and nominated graduate student papers from 2021 that use IPUMS data to advance or deepen our understanding of social and demographic processes.

This year we are pleased to announce the IPUMS Excellence in Research Award. The IPUMS mission of democratizing data demands that we increase representation of scholars from groups that are systemically excluded in research spaces. This award is an opportunity to highlight and reward outstanding work using any of the IPUMS data collections by authors who are underrepresented in social science research*. In addition to the Excellence in Research Award, the 2021 competition awarded prizes for the best published and best graduate student research in seven categories, each associated with specific IPUMS data collections:

  1. IPUMS USA, providing data from the U.S. decennial censuses, the American Community Survey, and includes full count data, from 1850 to the present.
  2. IPUMS CPS, providing data from the monthly U.S. labor force survey, the Current Population Survey (CPS), from 1962 to the present.
  3. IPUMS International, providing harmonized data contributed by more than 100 international statistical office partners for over 500 censuses and surveys from around the world for 1960 forward as well as full count historical (NAPP) data.
  4. IPUMS Health Surveys, which makes available the U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
  5. IPUMS Spatial, covering IPUMS NHGIS, IPUMS IHGIS, and IPUMS Terra. NHGIS includes GIS boundary files from 1790 to the present; IHGIS provides data tables from population and housing censuses as well as agricultural censuses from around the world; Terra provides data on population and the environment from 1960 to the present.
  6. IPUMS Global Health, providing harmonized data from the Demographic and Health Surveys and the Performance Monitoring and Accountability surveys, for low and middle-income countries from the 1980s to the present.
  7. IPUMS Time Use, providing time diary data from the U.S. and around the world from 1965 to the present.

Over 2,000 publications based on IPUMS data appeared in journals, magazines, and newspapers worldwide last year. From these publications and from nominated graduate student papers, the award committees selected the 2021 honorees.

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

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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.

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IPUMS PMA Longitudinal Data

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By Devon Kristiansen

When Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) initiated data collection in 2013, the survey design was a high-frequency, cross-sectional series with a focus on family planning, water, and sanitation indicators. Beginning in 2019, PMA refocused on reproductive and sexual health, and adjusted the survey design to add a contraceptive calendar and a longitudinal panel of women of childbearing age to observe contraceptive and fertility dynamics.

In order help researchers leverage the rich data from the redesigned PMA, IPUMS PMA has updated its online data dissemination system to provide longitudinal data in long form or wide form, delivering data files that link the women’s panel records.

The longitudinal data are designed to allow for analysis of contraceptive uptake, discontinuation, and method switching, as well as changes in fertility intentions and actualization over time. However, the redesigned survey also includes many new questions, including questions about domestic violence, women’s economic empowerment, abortion, health care access during COVID-19, and many other topics.

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Reproductive Calendar Data Now Available from IPUMS DHS

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By Miriam L. King

IPUMS DHS has released data for a new unit of analysis, woman-months, based on retrospective calendar data offering a month-to-month history of a woman’s reproductive events during the preceding five years.

Woman Months: Each record will be a woman-month from respective calendar data.

The calendar data document for every month whether a woman gave birth, was pregnant, or terminated a pregnancy. For most samples, the monthly record also indicates whether the woman used a (specified) contraceptive method and her the reason for stopping use of the method. Some samples also collect information on the woman’s union status, employment, and the type of pregnancy termination.

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Better Maps with Census Centers of Population

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Jonathan Schroeder, IPUMS Research Scientist, NHGIS Project Manager

The best mapping resource no one’s using?

In the domain of U.S. population mapping, the Census Bureau’s centers of population may be the nation’s most underused data resource. Before I explain why, let’s cover some basics…

What are they? A center of population represents the mean location of residence for an area’s population, roughly the average latitude and longitude, adjusting for the curvature of the earth. For the last three decennial censuses (2000, 2010, 2020), the Census Bureau has published centers of population separately for U.S. states, counties, census tracts, and block groups.

Where can you get them? Through the Census Bureau website, you can download files containing the latitude and longitude coordinates for centers of population. To facilitate mapping and analysis, IPUMS NHGIS has transformed the coordinates into point shapefiles, available for download through the NHGIS Data Finder.

What are they used for? At the moment, not much! But there are dozens of settings where they’d be helpful. I’m hoping this blog will help get the word out, and if it does, you might now be reading this in some future age, marveling how we ever went so long without using them!

OK, how should we use them? In the case of statistical maps—my focus here—centers of population are wonderfully effective for placing proportional symbols. I share lots of examples down below to demonstrate, but first, let’s consider the general advantages of proportional symbol maps compared to a more common alternative: choropleth maps…

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