In the India datasets, even when I download the source variables I am unable to find the district level identifiers though the National Sample Surveys - Employment Unemployment Rounds from which this data is sourced says that it has them. Is this IPUMS policy or is there a way to get the district names for this data from IPUMS?
District level identification is possible in all India samples, except for the 1983 and 1993 samples. You can find these variables under the household level variables tab in the “Geography: F-N” grouping. The district level variables are the second sub-national administrative area. Here are the available district identification variables for years from 1987 through 2009: GEO2_IN1987, GEO2_IN1999, GEO2_IN2004, and GEO2_IN2009.
Thanks, Jeff. The links are really helpful. One last question: So, the pdf questionnaires for 1983 and 1993 show that district was a variable that was collected. So, is it that the IPUMS data does not have it for 1983 and 1993 but the raw NSS data had it or that the raw NSS also did not have it when it was sourced?
As this page notes, in 1983 and 1993, the state is the lowest level of geographic identification available in the India samples. IPUMS International provides as much detail as possible, so it is likely that district identification in these years violates a confidentiality restriction which prohibits this variable from being available in IPUMS International.