Census Microdata Research Articles

Managing Employee Retention Concerns: Evidence from U.S. Census Data

ABSTRACT Using Census microdata on 28,000 manufacturing plants, we examine how firms manage employee retention concerns. In response to reductions in the local unemployment rate, plants take additional steps beyond increasing compensation. First, plants adjust bonus architecture to ensure bonuses can be paid. Second, plants offer more agency to employees by deploying high-involvement work practices that generate longer-term commitment. Third, plants pull these retention levers less when they have high availability and use of data as this reduces the adverse effects of employee turnover on organizational knowledge. These results are robust to using the fracking revolution as a shock increasing firms’ retention concerns. Additionally, we observe that although compensation increases tend to spill over to other plants within the same firm—aligning with theories of inequity aversion—adjustments to bonus architecture and the provision of employee agency do not, suggesting these may be more cost-effective strategies for multiplant firms. JEL Classifications: J63; M51; M54.

Migration and Education in the Global South: A Study of South American Origin Children in the Argentinean Educational System

The question of how the children of migrants compare to natives in destination countries has long occupied the research agenda of migration and integration scholars. But, while there are many studies that have explored this issue in the Global North, with special attention to South–North migrants, little is known about integration patterns of South–South migrants, that is, Southern migrants and their children residing in the Global South. This article addresses this concern by studying one of the key indicators of migrant integration—the educational achievement of the children of migrants—in one of the most popular migration corridors in the Global South—that of South Americans who emigrated to Argentina. Using census microdata from 2010, the article explores the educational attainment and educational reproduction of Bolivian-, Paraguayan-, Peruvian-, and Chilean-origin children in comparison with that of their native Argentine counterparts. The analysis distinguishes between 1.5 and second-generation children and focuses on young people between 6 and 21 years old who live with at least one parent. Two dimensions of educational attainment are explored: school attendance and educational level. The results show that the role of parental education tends to be weaker among migrant-origin groups. This has implications for the educational gap. In general, migrant-origin groups are advantaged over native Argentines among those with low-educated parents. Conversely, they present no differences or are disadvantaged among those with middle–high educated parents. This is observed for both 1.5 and second generations, with variations based on the outcome and national origin. Possible explanations are offered.

Persecution and Migrant Self-Selection: Evidence from the Collapse of the Communist Bloc

Abstract How does persecution affect who migrates? We analyze migrants' self-selection out of the USSR and its satellite states before and after the collapse of Communism using census microdata. We find that migrants arriving before and around the time of the collapse (who were more likely to have moved because of persecution) were more educated and obtained better labor market outcomes than those arriving later. This change is not fully explained by the removal of Communist-era emigration restrictions. Instead, we show both theoretically and empirically that this pattern is consistent with more positive self-selection of migrants who are motivated by persecution.

Can heterolocalism explain the residential patterns of small populations of foreigners in Japan? The cases of Afghans, Laotians, Bolivians and Turks

AbstractThis paper examines whether the residential patterns of small nationality‐based ethnic groups in Japan, such as Afghans, Laotians, Bolivians and Turks, can be successfully explained by the model of heterolocalism, which is well‐known for comprehensively explaining the patterns of new immigrants. This verification work is conducted based on census microdata, mapping and interviews with the foreigners. The model is characterized by five propositions, two of which are found not to apply to the Japanese case. Namely, regarding the ‘spatial dispersion’ proposition, a series of small‐sized clusters of foreign inhabitants was confirmed, suggesting that nodal heterolocalism as a modified model is better than the original model. As for the proposition of ‘spatial disjuncture between home and work’, we find that the places of work and residence show spatial proximity rather than separation, reflecting the fact that most of the foreign inhabitants are engaged in blue‐collar occupations. The obtained results serve as criticism of the heterolocalism model, which emphasizes that it is valid not only for the relatively privileged but also for certain lower‐status groups.

Population Density in Nineteenth-Century American Urbanism

Population density and size are the most commonly used metrics for defining modern cities and urbanism. Yet unlike size, density has been overlooked in systematic analyses of the historical development of the U.S. urban system. Deploying large-scale geocoded census microdata on forty major cities in 1880, this article contributes to a systematic understanding of density in late-nineteenth-century U.S. urbanism. Methodologically, we make the case for a block-level, population-weighted density measure that reflects the experience of density and is transferable to other urban contexts. Thematically, we use this measure to compare density across cities, outlining regionally distinct patterns in density and identifying the built environment as a contributing factor to high- versus low-density urban development, and to explore density within cities across population subgroups, finding that immigrants, racial minorities, and lower class residents experienced higher densities at a time when high density increased exposure to health risks. Additionally, throughout the article we draw out preliminary findings worthy of future research about density conditions for particular cities, places, and demographic subgroups.

No End to Hypergamy when Considering the Full Married Population

AbstractThe worldwide expansion of female educational opportunities in recent decades has prompted demographers to assess the frequency with which women marry up (hypergamy) or down (hypogamy) with regard to education. A series of articles documented dramatic and nearly universal declines in hypergamy over time and across female educational advantage. However, this previous work investigated hypergamy only in the context of unequal educational pairings, excluding couples with equal levels of education (homogamy) from their analyses. Here, we argue that the prevalence of hypergamy should instead be assessed in relation to all marriages. We apply this approach to the case of Latin America, where women have made important gains in schooling relative to men. Using census microdata spanning 105 birth cohorts in 16 countries, we demonstrate that, rather than declining, hypergamy has increased in most countries over time and remains relatively stable across female educational advantage. Meanwhile, the prevalence of educational homogamy has declined considerably in most countries and across the axis of female educational advantage, an important trend that emerges only when homogamy is incorporated into the analysis.

A Research Note on Community Resilience Estimates: New U.S. Census Bureau Data With an Application to Excess Deaths From COVID-19

In this research note, we describe the results of the first validation study of the U.S. Census Bureau's new Community Resilience Estimates (CRE), which uses Census microdata to develop a tract-level vulnerability index for the United States. By employing administrative microdata to link Social Security Administration mortality records to CRE, we show that CRE quartiles provide more stable predictions of COVID-19 excess deaths than single demographic categorizations such as race or age, as well as other vulnerability measures including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Risk Index (NRI). We also use machine learning techniques to show that CRE provides more predictive power of COVID-19 excess deaths than standard socioeconomic predictors of vulnerability such as poverty and unemployment, as well as SVI and NRI. We find that a 10-percentage-point increase in a key CRE risk measure is associated with one additional death per neighborhood during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States. We conclude that, compared with alternative measures, CRE provides a more accurate predictor of community vulnerability to a disaster such as a pandemic.

The status of rural children left-behind in China: 2010–2020

AbstractThis paper uses the 2010 and 2020 Population Census micro-data to analyze relevant characteristics and trends over the decade. The analysis includes the following aspects: population size of rural children left-behind, their age structure and sex composition, regional distribution, living arrangements, and educational development. The findings show that the population size of rural children left-behind remained large, and the likelihood of children being left-behind was closely related to age, with no significant difference by sex. An increasing proportion of rural children left-behind were cared for by grandparents as more mothers migrated between 2010 and 2020. Rural children left-behind no longer had an advantage in educational opportunities compared with average rural children. Over-age attendance was more prevalent among rural children left-behind than all rural children. Continuous attention should be paid to the issue of rural children left-behind and efforts should be made to address its root causes.

Counting Crofters: Digitised Census Enumerators Books as a New Source for the Later Nineteenth Century

This paper explores some of the ways in which access to the census enumerators books for later nineteenth century censuses, now digitised by the ‘Integrated Census Microdata’ project, can throw new light on a range of socio-demographic developments in the ‘Crofting Counties’ between the early 1850s and the early 1880s. Collating and mapping occupational titles by parish reveals major changes in the titles recorded for those farming small land parcels and in the spatial distributions and age profiles or those heading such households. The numbers of household heads reported as ‘Crofter’ markedly increased between 1851 and 1881 (including outside the ‘Crofting Counties’), as use of terms like ‘Tenant’ and ‘Lotter’ declined. ‘Cottar’, even in 1851 used in very small numbers in most places, was reported in 1881 in very limited areas, even where the estates still used it extensively. The number of households headed by ‘Fishermen’ increased greatly in some areas, notably in Lewis. At the same time, the numbers of men becoming heads of small agriculturalist households at younger ages fell markedly, while rising numbers headed households as ‘Fishermen’. Comparative analysis of four case study areas suggests that, when fishing and other incomes fell markedly in the early 1880s, inter-generational differences in access to headship of a croft may have been a significant stimulus to localised outbreaks of disturbance pressing for land reform.

New Frontiers: The Origins and Content of New Work, 1940–2018

Abstract We answer three core questions about the hypothesized role of newly emerging job categories (“new work”) in counterbalancing the erosive effect of task-displacing automation on labor demand: what is the substantive content of new work, where does it come from, and what effect does it have on labor demand? We construct a novel database spanning eight decades of new job titles linked to U.S. Census microdata and to patent-based measures of occupations’ exposure to labor-augmenting and labor-automating innovations. The majority of current employment is in new job specialties introduced since 1940, but the locus of new-work creation has shifted from middle-paid production and clerical occupations over 1940–1980 to high-paid professional occupations and secondarily to low-paid services since 1980. New work emerges in response to technological innovations that complement the outputs of occupations and demand shocks that raise occupational demand. Innovations that automate tasks or reduce occupational demand slow new-work emergence. Although the flow of augmentation and automation innovations is positively correlated across occupations, the former boosts occupational labor demand while the latter depresses it. The demand-eroding effects of automation innovations have intensified in the past four decades while the demand-increasing effects of augmentation innovations have not.

Duration of residence and offspring birth weight among foreign-born mothers in Spain: a cross-sectional study.

Duration of residence has been used to monitor changes in the health of a foreign-born population in a destination country. This study assesses whether the mother's duration of residence influences the relationship between maternal origin and birth weight. We conducted a cross-sectional study using Spanish census microdata (2011) linked to Vital Statistics (2011-15). Linear and multinomial logistic regression models were used to estimate birth weight differences between children born to foreign-born mothers by duration of residence and those born to natives. Maternal countries of origin were classified according to the Human Development Index (HDI). Our findings revealed significant differences in birth weight of 109683 births from both foreign- and native-born mothers. Overall, in descriptive statistics, compared with Spanish mothers, foreign-born mothers gave birth more frequently to high-birth weight (HBW) newborns (8.4% vs. 5.3%, respectively) and less frequently to low-birth weight (LBW) newborns (4.8% vs. 5.1%). According to the model's estimations, the risk of giving birth to HBW babies remains relatively high in foreign-born mothers. Especially, mothers from very high-HDI countries experienced changes in the RRR of HBW (1.59-1.28) and LBW (0.58-0.89) after spending over 10 years in Spain. Foreign-born mothers residing in Spain are at increased risk of delivering a HBW child regardless of their duration of residence. In fact, given the long-term health consequences associated with HBW, our results highlight the need to improve prenatal care in the foreign-born population.

Determinants of early marriage in Iran: a multivariate survivorship analysis using census microdata

ABSTRACT Recent reductions in female age at marriage in Iran correspond with the rise in the proportion of girls marrying at young ages. This paper aims to determine to what extent the probability of surviving in the never-married state by age 18 is affected by different time-invariant demographic, socio-economic, and cultural factors. A multivariate survivorship analysis was applied to the 2% micro-data from two successive censuses. This method is useful where longitudinal family surveys are not available. The findings indicate that (1) gender and ethnicity remain two important determinants of early marriage after adjusting for other covariates and (2) having literate parents substantially increases the relative probability of survival, with the literacy of the father displaying a larger influence regardless of gender and place of residence. These indicate the relevance of gender system, ethnicity, and socioeconomic standing in designing policies and interventions aimed at preventing early marriage in Iran.

Optimized spatial information for 1990, 2000, and 2010 U.S. census microdata

We report on the successful completion of a project to upgrade the positional accuracy of every response to the 1990, 2000, and 2010 U.S. decennial censuses. The resulting data set, called Optimized Spatial Census Information Linked Across Time (OSCILAT), resides within the restricted-access data warehouse of the Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) system where it is available for use with approval from the U.S. Census Bureau. OSCILAT greatly improves the accuracy and completeness of spatial information for older censuses conducted prior to major quality improvements undertaken by the Bureau. Our work enables more precise spatial and longitudinal analysis of census data and supports exact tabulations of census responses for arbitrary spatial units, including tabulating responses from 1990, 2000, and 2010 within 2020 block boundaries for precise measures of change over time for small geographic areas.

Income, stress, and sex ratios over 1895-2010

ABSTRACT The medical literature has shown that populations under high stress have a lower sex ratio at birth (i.e. number of males for every 100 females). In this paper, I examine the relationship between income, as a source of economic stress, and the sex ratio at a subnational level for the 1895–2010 period. For this, I use census microdata from Argentina -a developing country that experienced rapid growth at the end of the 19th century and stagnated in recent decades- and I estimate from a two-way fixed effects model that exploits the wide temporal and geographic variability in income. The results show that as per capita income increases, the sex ratio at birth also increases. In particular, for every US$ 1,000 increase in per capita income, the sex ratio increases between 0.3 and 0.6 points. These findings make it possible to quantify the lost boys (i.e. those boys who were not born due to high economic stress on their parents) and constitute a call for attention in favor of the implementation of prenatal care policies -especially in periods of stagnation or income decline- to maintain a more balanced sex ratio.

Parental gender preferences over three centuries: Evidence from Argentina

In this paper I examine the evolution of parental gender preferences in Argentina (i.e., parents who prefer a certain gender composition in their children). To do this, I use census microdata that spans the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. The estimation strategy exploits the plausibly random assignment in the gender of children. The results show a persistent preference for a mixed gender composition (i.e., having at least one boy and one girl) instead of children of the same gender. This translates into an increase in the probability of having a third child, conditional on already having two children of between 9%−23% for those couples who have children of the same gender -in relation to couples with children of opposite genders-. These preferences are heterogeneous over time and have important implications in terms of fertility (i.e., the reduction of these mixed gender preferences -in favor of greater gender-neutrality- could contribute to reducing the number of children per couple). In addition, the findings of this work support the empirical literature that uses the gender composition of the first two children as an instrumental variable to study the impact of fertility on labor participation.

Occupational Percentile Rank: A New Method for Constructing a Socioeconomic Index of Occupational Status

In this paper, we propose a method for constructing an occupation-based socioeconomic index that can easily incorporate changes in occupational structure. The resulting index is the occupational percentile rank for a given cohort, based on contemporaneous information pertaining to educational composition and the number of workers at the occupation level. An occupation may experience an increase or decrease in its occupational rank due to changes in relative sizes and educational compositions across occupations. The method is flexible in dealing with changes in occupational and educational measurements over time. Applying the method to U.S. history from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, we derive the index using IPUMS U.S. Census microdata from 1850 to 2000 and the American Community Surveys (ACSs) from 2001 to 2018. Compared to previous occupational measures, this new measure takes into account occupational status evolvement caused by long-term secular changes in occupational size and educational composition. The resulting percentile rank measure can be easily merged with social surveys and administrative data that include occupational measures based on the U.S. Census occupation codes and crosswalks.

COLORISM BEFORE AND AFTER THE ONE DROP RULE

ABSTRACT The ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson changed the United States from a color-focused society to a race-focused society and stripped the privileged formal status from mulattos. Black identity was flattened to what we know today: a collective identity with rampant color stratification. While research on colorism has expanded, we need to understand how contemporary colorism evolved from the systems of the past. I use Census microdata from 1870 and 1920 and regression analysis to examine colorism before and after the one-drop-rule. I reveal that colorism worsened after the one-drop-rule, and mulattos tried even harder to preserve their distinct identity.

Returns to Scale, Productivity, Measurement, and Trends in U.S. Manufacturing Misallocation

Abstract Aggregate productivity suffers when workers and machines are not matched with their most productive uses. This paper builds a model that features industry-specific markups, industry-specific returns to scale, and establishment-specific distortions and uses it to measure the extent of this misallocation in the economy. Applying the model to restricted U.S. Census microdata on the manufacturing sector suggests that misallocation declined by 13% between 1982 and 2007. The finding of declining misallocation starkly contrasts with the 29% increase implied by the widely used assumptions that all establishments charge the same markup and have constant returns to scale.

The role of migration networks in the development of Botswana's generalized HIV epidemic.

The majority of people with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, where epidemics are generalized. For these epidemics to develop, populations need to be mobile. However, the role of population-level mobility in the development of generalized HIV epidemics has not been studied. Here we do so by studying historical migration data from Botswana, which has one of the most severe generalized HIV epidemics worldwide; HIV prevalence was 21% in 2021. The country reported its first AIDS case in 1985 when it began to rapidly urbanize. We hypothesize that, during the development of Botswana's epidemic, the population was extremely mobile and the country was highly connected by substantial migratory flows. We test this mobility hypothesis by conducting a network analysis using a historical time series (1981-2011) of micro-census data from Botswana. Our results support our hypothesis. We found complex migration networks with very high rates of rural-to-urban, and urban-to-rural, migration: 10% of the population moved annually. Mining towns (where AIDS cases were first reported, and risk behavior was high) were important in-flow and out-flow migration hubs, suggesting that they functioned as 'core groups' for HIV transmission and dissemination. Migration networks could have dispersed HIV throughout Botswana and generated the current hyperendemic epidemic.

Understanding living alone among the young- and middle-aged in China (1990-2010): A gender perspective

ABSTRACT Living alone is becoming a noticeable living arrangement in China. A growing body of literature documented the transformations of the Chinese family structure. However, research on the relatively new household structure of living alone, with a focus solely on the young- and middle-aged, is limited. This article used China’s 1990, 2000, and 2010 census microdata to analyze how marital status, migration status, and education level were associated with living alone behavior among the young- and middle-aged. A gender perspective was involved in the entire analyses. We found that singlehood, migration, and education were all combined with gender and woven into a picture depicting the Chinese living alone during 1990–2010. Never married rural men (since 2000) and all divorced women have a relatively higher risk of living alone; mobility was more likely to bring about living alone for rural-hukou holders than urban-hukou holders. Decomposition analyses revealed that the increase in living alone of the young- and middle-aged was mainly driven by changes in migration and marital status, with changes in educational level playing a particularly important role in the rise of women living alone. In conclusion, unlike the observed pattern of living alone in the West, living alone in China is highly gendered and embodied in a rural-urban dual institution.