I simply need to know if variable HWSEI can be calculated back to 1900. I am working on a study that requires decennial data from 1900 to 2010 and HWSEI only includes values from 1950 on. Are these values availale or can they be calculated using existing income, employment and education variables?
The variable HWSEI gives an occupational prestige score based on occupations coded in OCC1990. OCC1990 is itself a recode of the OCC variable from any given sample. Since Occupational Coding Schemes have changed with every Decennial Census, IPUMS-USA created the consistently coded OCC1990 based on the 1990 Decennial Census coding scheme. The 1990 scheme was also used by Hauser and Warren to generate their socioeconomic index. So, it is possible to construct this variable for samples prior to 1950 by first translating the OCC codes into OCC1990 codes and then applying the HWSEI values to each record using OCC1990. However, since OCC1990 and HWSEI are both based on the occupational conditions of 1990, it is likely that some historic occupations will not have clear equivalents in the OCC1990 codes and the prestige scores associated with some OCC1990 codes may not be as applicable. If your research allows, the SEI variable (as well as other Occupational Prestige variables) relates to the OCC1950 coding scheme and is available for all IPUMS-USA samples.
I hope this helps.