Hello. I am trying to link individuals between 1st and 4th participating months and 5th and 8th participating months to calculate the mobility rate between 4 months. I thought I could use CPSIDP and MISH(which is number of times households are observed) to identify and match unique individuals across the months.
I was wondering if it is possilble to identify individuals who participate in one month, but not in the next month, and participate again in the next month. For example, an individual can participate in January 2013, not participate in Febuary 2013, and particpate again in March 2013, and so on. In this case would MISH be 1 for January and 2 for March 2013? Or would MISH be 1 for January 2013 and 2 for Febuary 2013 and 3 for March 2013?
I also observed that some individuals start their MISH from number that is other than 1. Does that mean individual is missing data in the first month of participation?
I’m glad you were able to find that earlier post, but just to clarify your original question, the variable MISH corresponds to the sequential month the household was eligible to participate in the CPS. So if they participate in January 2013, not participate in Febuary 2013, and participate again in March 2013, they will have a record with MISH=1, and a record with MISH=3, but no record with MISH=2. This also applies to MISH=1, so if they missed that survey, their first MISH value will be greater than 1. To find the total number of interviews, you’ll need to count up the number of records that share a value of CPSIDP.