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Labor Market Networks and Recovery from Mass Layoffs Before, During, and After the Great Recession
June 2015
Working Paper Number:
CES-15-14
We test the effects of labor market networks defined by residential neighborhoods on re-employment following mass layoffs. We develop two measures of labor market network strength. One captures the flows of information to job seekers about the availability of job vacancies at employers of workers in the network, and the other captures referrals provided to employers by other network members. These network measures are linked to more rapid re-employment following mass layoffs, and to re-employment at neighbors' employers. We also find evidence that network connections ' especially those that provide information about job vacancies ' became less productive during the Great Recession.
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Co-Working Couples and the Similar Jobs of Dual-Earner Households
January 2015
Working Paper Number:
CES-15-23R
Although an increasing number of studies consider married or cohabiting couples as current, former, or potential co-workers, there is surprisingly little evidence on the extent to which couples work at the same workplace. This study provides benchmark estimates on the frequency with which opposite-sex married and cohabiting couples in the United States share the same occupation, industry, work location, and employer using Census 2000 responses linked with administrative records data. This study contains the first representative estimate of the fraction of couples that share an employer, which is in the range of 11% to 13%. These shared employers can account for much of couples' shared industry, occupation, and location of employment. Longitudinal data on the employment and residency indicates that co-working couples much more likely to have chosen the same employer than to have met at work.
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Design Comparison of LODES and ACS Commuting Data Products
October 2014
Working Paper Number:
CES-14-38
The Census Bureau produces two complementary data products, the American Community Survey (ACS) commuting and workplace data and the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES), which can be used to answer questions about spatial, economic, and demographic questions relating to workplaces and home-to-work flows. The products are complementary in the sense that they measure similar activities but each has important unique characteristics that provide information that the other measure cannot. As a result of questions from data users, the Census Bureau has created this document to highlight the major design differences between these two data products. This report guides users on the relative advantages of each data product for various analyses and helps explain differences that may arise when using the products.2,3
As an overview, these two data products are sourced from different inputs, cover different populations and time periods, are subject to different sets of edits and imputations, are released under different confidentiality protection mechanisms, and are tabulated at different geographic and characteristic levels. As a general rule, the two data products should not be expected to match exactly for arbitrary queries and may differ substantially for some queries.
Within this document, we compare the two data products by the design elements that were deemed most likely to contribute to differences in tabulated data. These elements are: Collection, Coverage, Geographic and Longitudinal Scope, Job Definition and Reference Period, Job and Worker Characteristics, Location Definitions (Workplace and Residence), Completeness of Geographic Information and Edits/Imputations, Geographic Tabulation Levels, Control Totals, Confidentiality Protection and Suppression, and Related
Public-Use Data Products.
An in-depth data analysis'in aggregate or with the microdata'between the two data products will be the subject of a future technical report. The Census Bureau has begun a pilot project to integrate ACS microdata with LEHD administrative data to develop an enhanced frame of employment status, place of work, and commuting. The Census Bureau will publish quality metrics for person match rates, residence and workplace match rates, and commute distance comparisons.
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LEHD Infrastructure files in the Census RDC - Overview
June 2014
Working Paper Number:
CES-14-26
The Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program at the U.S. Census Bureau, with the support of several national research agencies, maintains a set of infrastructure files using administrative data provided by state agencies, enhanced with information from other administrative data sources, demographic and economic (business) surveys and censuses. The LEHD Infrastructure Files provide a detailed and comprehensive picture of workers, employers, and their interaction in the U.S. economy. This document describes the structure and content of the 2011 Snapshot of the LEHD Infrastructure files as they are made available in the Census Bureaus secure and restricted-access Research Data Center network. The document attempts to provide a comprehensive description of all researcher-accessible files, of their creation, and of any modifcations made to the files to facilitate researcher access.
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Income Packaging and Economic Disconnection: Do Sources of Support Differ from Other Low-Income Women?
December 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-61
Income packaging, or piecing together cash and non-cash resources from a variety of sources, is a common financial survival strategy among low-income women. This strategy is particularly important for economically disconnected women, who lack both employment income and public cash assistance receipt. Using data from the confidential Census Bureau versions of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this study compares the use of public and private supports between disconnected and connected low-income women, controlling for differences in state welfare rules and county unemployment rates. Findings from bivariate comparisons and multilevel logistic regressions indicate that disconnected women utilize public non-cash supports at similar rates to connected women, but rely more heavily on private sources. Conclusions focus on the policy implications for outreach and program development.
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Do Labor Market Networks Have An Important Spatial Dimension?
September 2012
Working Paper Number:
CES-12-30
We test for evidence of spatial, residence-based labor market networks. Turnover is lower for workers more connected to their neighbors generally and more connected to neighbors of the same race or ethnic group. Both results are consistent with networks producing better job matches, while the latter could also reflect preferences for working with neighbors of the same race or ethnicity. For earnings, we find a robust positive effect of the overall residence-based network measure, whereas we usually find a negative effect of the same-group measure, suggesting that the overall network measure reflects productivity enhancing positive network effects, while the same-group measure captures a non-wage amenity.
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Professional Employer Organizations: What Are They, Who Uses Them and Why Should We Care?
September 2010
Working Paper Number:
CES-10-22
More and more U.S. workers are counted as employees of firms that they do not actually work for. Among such workers are those who staffed by temporary help service (THS) agencies and leased employees who are on the payroll of professional employment organizations (PEOs) but work for PEOs' client firms. While several papers study firms' use of THS services, few examine firms' use of PEO services. In this article, we summarize PEOs' business practices and examine how the intensity of their use varies across industries, geographic areas, and establishment characteristics using both public and confidential data.
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Health-Related Research Using Confidential U.S. Census Bureau Data
August 2008
Working Paper Number:
CES-08-21
Economic studies on health-related issues have the potential to benefit all Americans. The approaches for dealing with the growth of health care costs and health insurance coverage are ever changing and information is needed on their efficacy. Research on health-related topics has been conducted for about a decade at the Census Bureau\u2019s Center for Economic Studies and the Research Data Centers. This paper begins by describing the confidential business and demographic Census Bureau data products used in this research. The discussion continues with summaries of nearly 30 papers, including how this work has benefited the Census Bureau and its research findings. Some focus on data linkages and assessing data quality, while others address important questions in the employer, public, and individual insurance markets. This research could not have been accomplished with public-use data. The newly available data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and National Center for Health Statistics, as well as additional Census Bureau data now available in the Research Data Centers are also discussed.
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Using Internal Current Population Survey Data to Reevaluate Trends in Labor Earnings Gaps by Gender, Race, and Education Level
July 2008
Working Paper Number:
CES-08-18
Most empirical studies of trends in labor earnings gaps by gender, race or education level are based on data from the public use March Current Population Survey (CPS). Using the internal March CPS, we show that inconsistent topcoding in the public use data will understate these gaps and inaccurately capture their trends. We create a cell mean series beginning in 1975 that provides the mean of all values above the topcode for each income source in the public use March CPS and better approximate earnings gaps found in the internal March CPS than was previously possible using publically available data.
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Social, Economic, Spatial, and Commuting Patterns of Self-Employed Jobholders
April 2007
Working Paper Number:
tp-2007-03
A significant number of employees within the United States identify themselves as selfemployed,
and they are distinct from the larger group identified as private jobholders. While
socioeconomic and spatial information on these individuals is readily available in standard
datasets, such as the 2000 Decennial Census Long Form, it is possible to gain further information
on their wage earnings by using data from administrative wage records. This study takes
advantage of firm-based data from Unemployment Insurance administrative wage records linked
with the Census Bureau's household-based data in order to examine self-employed jobholders -
both as a whole and as subgroups defined according to their earned wage status - by their
demographic characteristics as well as their economic, commuting, and spatial location
outcomes. Additionally, this report evaluates whether self-employed jobholders and the defined
subgroups should be included explicitly in future labor-workforce analyses and transportation
modeling. The analyses in this report use the sample of self-employed workers who lived in Los
Angeles County, California.
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