IPUMS International -- Fun with Census Microdata

Peter Clark IT Core Director Minnesota Population Center University of Minnesota

http://www.pop.umn.edu http://www.ipums.org

Population Growth Over Time

Worldwide Participation in IPUMS-I

ParticipatingAgreement Pending

No agreement yet

Data Providers

So what?§ IPUMS = Integrated Public Use Microdata Series

§ We clean it up, integrate it, and document it (in English), so you don’t have to.

§ What can you do with integrated census microdata?

- Compare things across time and geography - Compare things across specific subgroups of people or household

configurations

§ Lots of cases means that it’s easy to get statistical significance when you find a real effect.

Selected Research/Use Cases§ Demographic Transition from the point of view of children

FIGURE 7. Cumulative distribution of siblings of children aged 9-11, eight countries: Proportionwith specified number of surviving children or fewerSOURCE: Estimates from IPUMS-International census microsamples (Minnesota PopulationCenter 2007).

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Selected Research/Use Cases§ Is the “Nuclear Family” an exceptional trait in NW European households?

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Selected Research/Use Cases§ How accurate is US Census Public Use Microdata? 18

Figure 1. Population estimates from 2000 5% Census PUMS as a percentage of published data

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Sources: Census 2000 Summary File 4, Table PCT3 (http://factfinder.census.gov); Census 2000 5% sample, IPUMS-USA (http://usa.ipums.org/).

Figure 2. ACS 2006: Population estimates from PUMS as a percentage of published data

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Sources: 2006 ACS Table B01001 (http://factfinder.census.gov); 2006 ACS PUMS, IPUMS-USA (http://usa.ipums.org/).

End

§ Just a sample of what people are doing with IPUMS data; there are over 4K hits for IPUMS in Google Scholar.

§ Access to a big collection of comparable population data lets us play with a variety of interesting questions that were difficult to explore quantitatively before.

Citations for use cases§ 1. Lam, David and Letícia Marteleto. 2008.

- "Stages of the Demographic Transition from a Child’s Perspective: Family Size, Cohort Size, and Children’s Resources"

- Popul Dev Rev. 2008 ; 34(2): 225–252. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2008.00218.x.

§ 2. Ruggles, Steven. 2009. - “Reconsidering the Northwest European Family System.” - Population and Development Review 35: 249-273. - Downloaded from http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/PDR/

§ 3. Alexander, J. Trent, Michael Davern, and Betsey Stevenson. 2010. - "Inaccurate Age and Sex Data in the Census PUMS Files: Evidence and

Implications." - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 15703.

§ Thank you!