I notice a large number of 'missing' or 'N/A' values for education (HIGRADE) in the 1950 census. Is this normal?

1

I notice a large number of ‘missing’ or ‘N/A’ values for education (HIGRADE) in the 1950 census. Is this normal?

2

Yes, this is normal. The 1950 census designated one “sample-line” person within each household who answered additional questions. The Universe Tab of HIGRADE indicates that this question is only asked of the “sample-line” person in the 1950 sample. So, this is the reason for the higher number of “N/A” observations. Additionally, for this same reason, we have a sample-line specific person-level weight variable (SLWT) for using these variables.

3

I just want to note that Abacus does not use the correct weights for these variables, creating incorrect estimates. You would Abacus would use slwt for these questions in 1950.

https://usa.abacus.ipums.org/session?session=1~191762~2581~191087!1910878.1910879.19108710.19108711.19108712.19108713.19108714.19108715.19108716.19108717.19108718.19108719.19108720.19108721.19108722~~t~percent

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4

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. You’re correct that PERWT is incorrectly being used for these sample line questions (SLWT is the correct weight). I have passed this along to the IPUMS USA team and our group that works on IPUMS Abacus to determine if the tool can be modified to allow for different weights for the same variable depending on the year