Linking Spouses, including Occupation Codes

1

Hello,

I am interested looking at labor market outcomes for military spouses. To that end, I am wondering if its possible to create a data abstract that (1) lets me link spouses together and (2) has occupational and labor market information for both spouses (so I can identify whether one spouse is in the military as well as how the other spouse is doing in the labor market). Based on other papers I have read in this vein, I believe this is possible with the ACS dataset, but I haven’t used the ACS much so I am wondering what the best way to do this is.

Thank you very much for your help!

2

As long as I correctly understand what you are trying to do, this task is possible using ACS data. In fact, the task of linking spouses together is made easy within the IPUMS USA data extract system. The attach characteristics tool uses the IPUMS-generated family interrelationship pointer variables to automatically generate a dataset where information about probable spouses are linked. For more information on how to use these features, here are a list of video tutorials including a specific tutorial on using the attach characteristics tool.