Accessing Data Collected by the Census Bureau

1. Accessing Data Collected by the Census Bureau THURSDAY, April 26, 2012

2. Quick Review 2010 decennial data is “short-form” only – limited demographic characteristics; ACS now source of “long-form” type of data Census Data released in two “flavors” – Aggregate data Microdata A third type of data product identifies geographic boundaries Aggregate data released in a variety of products, differing in content, geographic specificity and temporal coverage Microdata has flexibility of individual level information, but balances this by only gross geographic detail

3. Access and Resources Aggregate data resources Microdata resources Geography resources Local resources

4. Access and Resources Aggregate resources: American Factfinder 2, Social Explorer, DataFerrett, Uexplore/Dexter, NHGIS, Historical Census Browser, Geolytics NCDB Microdata resources Online Analysis: SDA & IPUMS Extract/Download: IPUMS, ICPSR, NBER, DataFerrett, Census, Unicon Restricted Use: California Census Research Data Center Geographic: Census, MABLE/Geocorr, IPUMS, NHGIS Documentation: IPUMS, AFF2, ICPSR Visualization: Social Explorer, Historical Census Browser, AFF2 Local Resources: DOF/DRU, SDCs, UC DATA, DataLab, CCRDC

6. Just When You thought it was safe….. American Factfinder II

7. The “new” American Factfinder

8. Data Search Strategy • Specification act as a “sieve” – eliminating non-conforming tables, data, geographies, etc. • So…. Pick your most limiting conditions first. • Need very detailed geography? Pick that first. • Know your base dataset? Pick that early. • Need data for 2010? Limit your search from the start • Think about “bookmarking” for geographies or items you’ll return to

13. Alternative to AFF: FTP Full Files

14. AFF 2: Deep Linking

15. Deep Linking in AFF2 • http://factfinder2.census.gov/legacy/AFF_deep_linking_guide.pdf • factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/version/lang /program/dataset/product [/geo_id[|geo_id]*][/codetype~code[|code]*]*

16. Deep Linking

17. Deep Linking

18. Same FTP Options for ACS

23. Historical Census Data Browser

24. Example: Class Assignment • Describe, in broad terms, the demographics of the Fruitvale community. Population size, SES, race, ethnicity, nativity, age, education, occupation, etc.. Over time? • Questions. • What is Fruitvale? A place? A CDP? A neighborhood? • How will we define our geography? Does this limit anything? • What data sets are available for evaluation? • What data items do we want?

25. http://www.acphd.org/media/53462/fruitvale.pdf Tracts 4061-4063, 4065-4066, 4070-4072

27. Deep Linking approach

28. Deep Linking approach • http://factfinder2.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en /ACS/10_5YR/B01001A /1400000US06001406100 |1400000US06001406201|1400000US06001406202 |1400000US06001406300|1400000US06001406400 |1400000US06001406500|1400000US06001406601 |1400000US06001406602|1400000US06001407000 |1400000US06001407101|1400000US06001407102 |1400000US06001407200

29. Micro-data Resources

30. Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA)and the Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples (IPUMS)

31. The Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples

32. The Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples www.ipums.org at the Minnesota Population Center IPUMS-USAHarmonized data on people in the U.S. census and American Community Survey, from 1850 to the present. IPUMS-CPSHarmonized data on people in the Current Population Survey, every March from 1962 to the present Important! Harmonized: Questions asked change over time: How to make data comparable? Integrated: Multiple data collections & surveys simultaneously available Microdata: The underlying individual-level data is available, not just pre-defined tables.

33. The American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey CPS – Long-running monthly survey (dating back to the 1940’s) focused on labor force characteristics (unemployment, earnings, hours worked). ~ 55,000 sample HH’s, multiple interviews, personal In addition to the basic monthly questions, additional modules are “piggy-backed” onto the survey to provide more depth on particular topics. Most widely used supplement is the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) - aka Annual Demographic Survey or the March Files. (~100,000 HH’s) In-depth survey – lots of detail about sources of income, work, occupational, hours, etc. (as well as core demographic information on race/ethnicity, nativity, age, sex, educataion)

34. The American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey ACS – “New” continuous survey, replaces the long form of the decennial census, first fully implemented in 2005 (non-institutionalized) and 2006 (institutionalized). ~ 2,000,000 HH’s annually, mixed mail-in/personal interviews Substantial overlapping content with CPS Broader range of content, somewhat less detail Larger sample sizes allow for greater geographic detail

35. The American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey Microdata vs. Aggregate

36. The Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples www.ipums.org at the Minnesota Population Center Strengths: Tremendous centralized documentation Many “value-added” data items Wonderful extraction engine (if downloading data) Multiple statistical Packages supported Online Analysis also possible

37. The Integrated Public Use Microdata Samples Online Analysis Links

38. The Basics of SDA • What is SDA? • What can you do with SDA? • The parts of the SDA interface • Menu • Variable List • Active variables • Analysis Specification

39. Part II. Working with SDA 1.Parts of the SDA interface 2.Finding data/variables/subjects - search - documentation 3. Analysis - Components - rows, columns, selection, controls Procedures - crosstabs, means, correlations 4. Aids in Analysis Recoding Saving new variables Downloading

40. The Basics of SDA What is SDA? SDA (Survey Documentation and Analysis) is a set of programs for the documentation and Web-based analysisof survey data. It was developed and is maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at UC Berkeley. It was developed as a companion program with CASES (Computer Assisted Survey Execution Program), a package for collecting survey data based on structured questionnaires, using a variety of modes of data collection. It operates on a transposed file structure, which makes analysis of datasets, especially large datasets, extremely fast.

41. Part I. The Basics of SDA What is SDA? SDA (Survey Documentation and Analysis) is a set of programs for the documentation and Web-based analysisof survey data. It was developed and is maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at UC Berkeley. It was developed as a companion program with CASES (Computer Assisted Survey Execution Program), a package for collecting survey data based on structured questionnaires, using a variety of modes of data collection. It operates on a transposed file structure, which makes analysis of datasets, especially large datasets, extremely fast.

42. Part I. The Basics of SDA • What data is available in SDA? • LOTS! • Many popular social science datasets (e.g. the GSS, the ANES, the PUMS from the Decennial Census, the ACS, the CPS Annual Demographic Files,…… can be found in SDA format. • Many archives (ICPSR, IPUMS, CPANDA, Roper, SDA, UCDATA….) provide at least some of their holdings in SDA format.

43. Multiple Census Samples at IPUMS (http://usa.ipums.org/usa/sda/)

44. And CPS (March files) data, as well (http://cps.ipums.org/cps/sda/)

45. The Basics of SDA • What can you do with SDA? • SDA can be used to: • learn about a dataset (metadata, paradata) • search for variables of interest • investigate sample sizes and variable distributions • perform statistical analyses • transform, manipulate and create variables for each unit • extract and download subsets or full datasets

46. Part I. The Basics of SDA • The four parts of the SDA interface • Action Menu • Variable List • Active Variable • Analysis Specification

47. Action Menu

49. Collapsed Variable Tree

50. Active Variables