Hello,
I am looking at a ZCTA level census file (persons by sex by age) from 1990 to 2010. However, I noticed that the source file for 1990 includes ZIP code, and not ZCTA. Is there functionally any difference between these two variables?
Dear Katherine,
Based on this 1990 technical document, the 1990 ZIP Code data are functionally equivalent to ZCTAs in 2000-forward.
For 1980, the Bureau just tabulated data by ZIP code of the mailing address, but for 1990 they did use block data to approximate ZIP codes.
Sincerely,
Dave Van Riper