Would anyone know/have thoughts on how to filter monthly CPS data to distinguish whether one partner in a married household is not in the labor force & one is employed, if even possible? codes are here
I’m also not sure whether it might be better to use the raw data as opposed to IPUMS, since some codes are different and I haven’t seen monthly CPS data in IPUMS?
Basic monthly CPS samples are available through IPUMS. To add these to your extract, choose the Select Samples button in the extract creation site. Then choose the Basic Monthly tab (see screenshot).
IPUMS CPS makes it easy to view the labor force and employment status of a person’s spouse with the “Attach Characteristics” feature. This video describes how to use this feature. To determine the labor force and employment status, include the variable EMPSTAT in your extract, and then attach EMPSTAT as a characteristic of the spouse. You can then identify your households of interest by looking at the householder (the member with PERNUM=1). They will have EMPSTAT=(10,12) with EMPSTAT_SP=(32,34,36), or vice versa. IPUMS makes it easy to pool together multiple basic monthly surveys in a single extract and harmonizes variables over time (this is part of why some of the codes are different); unless you have already done the bulk of your coding with the original data, I would recommend using the IPUMS version.
