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Creating Linked Historical Data: An Assessment of the Census Bureau's Ability to Assign Protected Identification Keys to the 1960 Census
September 2014
Working Paper Number:
carra-2014-12
In order to study social phenomena over the course of the 20th century, the Census Bureau is investigating the feasibility of digitizing historical census records and linking them to contemporary data. However, historical censuses have limited personally identifiable information available to match on. In this paper, I discuss the problems associated with matching older censuses to contemporary data files, and I describe the matching process used to match a small sample of the 1960 census to the Social Security Administration Numeric Identification System.
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Person Matching in Historical Files using the Census Bureau's Person Validation System
September 2014
Working Paper Number:
carra-2014-11
The recent release of the 1940 Census manuscripts enables the creation of longitudinal data spanning the whole of the twentieth century. Linked historical and contemporary data would allow unprecedented analyses of the causes and consequences of health, demographic, and economic change. The Census Bureau is uniquely equipped to provide high quality linkages of person records across datasets. This paper summarizes the linkage techniques employed by the Census Bureau and discusses utilization of these techniques to append protected identification keys to the 1940 Census.
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2010 American Community Survey Match Study
July 2014
Working Paper Number:
carra-2014-03
Using administrative records data from federal government agencies and commercial sources, the 2010 ACS Match Study measures administrative records coverage of 2010 ACS addresses, persons, and persons at addresses at different levels of geography as well as by demographic characteristics and response mode. The 2010 ACS Match Study represents a continuation of the research undertaken in the 2010 Census Match Study, the first national-level evaluation of administrative records data coverage. Preliminary results indicate that administrative records provide substantial coverage for addresses and persons in the 2010 ACS (92.7 and 92.1 percent respectively), and less extensive though substantial coverage, for person-address pairs (74.3 percent). In addition, some variation in address, person and/or person-address coverage is found across demographic and response mode groups. This research informs future uses of administrative records in survey and decennial census operations to address the increasing costs of data collection and declining response rates.
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Estimating Record Linkage False Match Rate for the Person Identification Validation System
July 2014
Working Paper Number:
carra-2014-02
The Census Bureau Person Identification Validation System (PVS) assigns unique person identifiers to federal, commercial, census, and survey data to facilitate linkages across files. PVS uses probabilistic matching to assign a unique Census Bureau identifier for each person. This paper presents a method to measure the false match rate in PVS following the approach of Belin and Rubin (1995). The Belin and Rubin methodology requires truth data to estimate a mixture model. The parameters from the mixture model are used to obtain point estimates of the false match rate for each of the PVS search modules. The truth data requirement is satisfied by the unique access the Census Bureau has to high quality name, date of birth, address and Social Security (SSN) data. Truth data are quickly created for the Belin and Rubin model and do not involve a clerical review process. These truth data are used to create estimates for the Belin and Rubin parameters, making the approach more feasible. Both observed and modeled false match rates are computed for all search modules in federal administrative records data and commercial data.
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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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Comparison of Survey, Federal, and Commercial Address Data Quality
June 2014
Working Paper Number:
carra-2014-06
This report summarizes matching of survey, commercial, and administrative records housing units to the Census Bureau Master Address File (MAF). We document overall MAF match rates in each data set and evaluate differences in match rates across a variety of housing characteristics. Results show that over 90 percent of records in survey data from the American Housing Survey (AHS) match to the MAF. Commercial data from CoreLogic matches at much lower rates, in part due to missing address information and poor match rates for multi-unit buildings. MAF match rates for administrative records from the Department of Housing and Urban Development are also high, and open the possibility of using this information in surveys such as the AHS.
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The Nature of the Bias When Studying Only Linkable Person Records: Evidence from the American Community Survey
April 2014
Working Paper Number:
carra-2014-08
Record linkage across survey and administrative records sources can greatly enrich data and improve their quality. The linkage can reduce respondent burden and nonresponse follow-up costs. This is particularly important in an era of declining survey response rates and tight budgets. Record linkage also creates statistical bias, however. The U.S. Census Bureau links person records through its Person Identification Validation System (PVS), assigning each record a Protected Identification Key (PIK). It is not possible to reliably assign a PIK to every record, either due to insufficient identifying information or because the information does not uniquely match any of the administrative records used in the person validation process. Non-random ability to assign a PIK can potentially inject bias into statistics using linked data. This paper studies the nature of this bias using the 2009 and 2010 American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is well-suited for this analysis, as it contains a rich set of person characteristics that can describe the bias. We estimate probit models for whether a record is assigned a PIK. The results suggest that young children, minorities, residents of group quarters, immigrants, recent movers, low-income individuals, and non-employed individuals are less likely to receive a PIK using 2009 ACS. Changes to the PVS process in 2010 significantly addressed the young children deficit, attenuated the other biases, and increased the validated records share from 88.1 to 92.6 percent (person-weighted).
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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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A COMPARISON OF PERSON-REPORTED INDUSTRY TO EMPLOYER-REPORTED INDUSTRY
IN SURVEY AND ADMINISTRATIVE DATA
September 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-47
The Census Bureau collects industry information through surveys and administrative data and creates associated public-use statistics. In this paper, we compare person-reported industry in the American Community Survey (ACS) to employer-reported industry from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) that is part of the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program. This research provides necessary information on the use of administrative data as a supplement to survey data industry information, and the findings will be useful for anyone using industry information from either source. Our project is part of a larger effort to compare information on jobs from household survey data to employer-reported information. This research is the first to compare ACS job data to firm-based administrative data. We find an overall industry sector match rate of 75 percent, and a 61 percent match rate at the 4-digit Census Industry Code (CIC) level. Industry match rates vary by sector and by whether industry sector is classified using ACS or LEHD industry information. The educational services and health care and social assistance sectors have among the highest match rates. The management of companies and enterprises sector has the lowest match rate, using either ACS-reported or LEHD-reported sector. For individuals with imputed industry data, the industry sector match rate is only 14 percent. Our findings suggest that the industry distribution and the sample in a particular industry sector will differ depending on whether ACS or LEHD data are used.
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The Racial and Ethnic Composition of Local Government Employees in Large Metro Areas, 1960-2010
August 2013
Working Paper Number:
CES-13-38
This study uses census microdata from 1960 to 2010 to look at how the racial and ethnic composition of local government employees has reflected the diversity of the general population in the 100 largest metro areas over the last half century. Historically, one route to upward social mobility has been employment in local government. This study uses microdata that predates key immigration and civil rights legislation of the 1960s through to the present to examine changes in the racial and ethnic composition of local government employees and in the general population. For this study, local government employees have been divided into high- and low-wage occupations. These data indicate that local workforces have grown more diverse over time, though representation across different racial and ethnic groups and geographic areas is uneven. African-Americans were underrepresented in high-wage local government employment and overrepresented in low-wage jobs in the early years of this study, particularly in the South, but have since become proportionally represented in high-wage jobs on a national level. In contrast, the most recent data indicate that Hispanic and other races are underrepresented in this employment group, particularly in the West. Though the numbers of Hispanic and Asian high-wage local government employees are increasing, it appears that it will take several years for those groups to achieve proportional representation throughout the United States.
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