I am trying to classify the IND1950 variable to their corresponding sector - Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Services. I am using census data for years from 1940 to 2000 and 5 years ACS for 2010. I wanted to know how can I map the IND1950 variable to the three sectors correctly. Any reference for paper which has made this classification consistently would also be helpful.
I’m not aware of any crosswalks that map IND1950 into these three sectors. The US Census Bureau currently uses the 2017 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) to classify industries into one of 20 sectors, 10 supersectors, and two super sector groups (the goods-producing industries and service-providing industries); you can find older classification systems used by Census on this crosswalks page. You may be able to create your own crosswalk between IND1950 and the NAICS groupings (available in the variable INDNAICS). However, since the NAICS is regularly updated, you would need to decide on a vintage of the NACIS to use to compare how IND1950 maps into these categories (see this blogpost on how to construct your own industry crosswalk). As an alternative, coding for IND1950 does provide a consistent grouping of industries into 16 sectors, including agriculture, forestry, and fishing, manufacturing of durable goods, manufacturing of nondurable goods, and several different service sectors. You might use these to construct your own grouping of industries into your sectors of interest.