Missing data in OWNERSHIP variable

INTERNATIONAL
1

Hello,

I couldn’t find the answer to this using the search bar. Sorry if this is a repeated question, please direct me to the available answer and I’ll delete it.

I’ve been working with housing tenure data from the .xml files from the 1960s all the way to 2019. I have extracted data on number of households (HHWT), the year of the census (YEAR) and whether the household head owns the housing unit (OWNERSHIP and OWNERSHIPD for details).

I have noticed that in several country-years in these files the ownership variables appear as NA. In fact, for several countries every year they appear in the database has missing data for OWNERSHIP, even if their census for the year has a question about it.

I was wondering if this is really just missing data or if I am doing something incorrectly in my extraction? I found it odd, e.g. that no ownership data is available on the Netherlands. Perhaps I am looking at the wrong files?

The full list of country-years I could not find ownership data:

Austria (1971), Canada (1971), Chile (2017), China (1982, 1990, 2000), Colombia (1964), Cuba (2002, 2012), Dominican Republic (1960, 1970), Fiji (1966, 1976), France (2006), Palestine (2017), Germany (1970), Ghana (1984), Guatemala (1973), Guinea (2014), Honduras (1974), Indonesia (1976, 2000), Iran (2011), Ireland (1979, 1986, 1996), Kenya (1969, 1979), Kyrgyzstan (1999, 2009), Lesotho (2006), Liberia (1974), Mauritius (1990, 2000, 2011), Mexico (2005), Mongolia (1989, 2000), Mozambique (1997), Netherlands (1960, 1971, 2001, 2011), Pakistan (1973, 1981), Panama (1970), Paraguay (1962), Philippines (1995), Poland (2011), Romania (1992, 2002), Russia (2002, 2010), Slovakia (1991, 2001, 2011), Slovenia (2002), Spain (1981), Suriname (2004), Togo (1960, 1970), Ukraine (2001), Tanzania (2002), Burkina Faso (1985)

2

You’re correct that not all variables are available for all samples. The documentation for each variable includes an availability tab (see OWNERSHIP) that lists the samples for which it’s available. Availability is dictated by the questions that were asked in the corresponding sample, the specific data shared with IPUMS, confidentiality agreements regarding what data we are allowed to release, and whether the source data has been harmonized into the corresponding variable.

For example, the 2002 Chile Census asks residents whether the dwelling they occupy is owned in full, owned with a mortgage, rented, ceded in return for work or services, or free (see Question 3 in the 2002 questionnaire). Meanwhile, the 2017 Chile Census only asks whether the housing unit is privately owned or a collectively owned unit. For private units, enumerators also recorded what type of unit this was with options for “house” and “apartment”, but this information is not sufficient to code household tenure in OWNERSHIP.

In other cases such as Austria (1971), Canada (1971), and the Netherlands (1960-2011) questions regarding tenure were asked, but due to disclosure rules or other reasons the data provided to us do not include this detail.

In a few cases, the data may exist in a sample-specific source variable that has not yet been integrated into OWNERSHIP (e.g., FR2006A_OWNSHIP from the France 2006 sample) that you can add to your data extract. You can search for these types of unharmonized variables using the search tool. To streamline the search process for these, I recommend that you first select only the samples from your list that do NOT have data for OWNERSHIP. Within the search tool, you should then limit your search to “Limit variables by selected samples” and check the “include source variables” option (deselect the “include harmonized variables” option to see only the source variables). I would recommend search terms such as “rent”, “sublet”, or “ownership”. After you have added the source variables to your data extract, you can update your extract to include all samples of interest and add the remaining variables.

3

I had noticed that some census questionnaires had those unharmonized variables, but had no idea I could use that search tool to look them up. I will look into that. Thank you for the detailed response!

Just out of curiosity, why haven’t these additional source variables (like in the France 2006 case) been integrated into OWNERSHIP yet? Is it a problem with

4

After reviewing our documentation, I was unable to find any issues with this source variable. Due to time constraints, we occasionally do not integrate all variables that are included in the original source data. We appreciate hearing from the research community about which variables would be most useful; I will share your interest with the IPUMS-International team so that they can look into including this in a future data release.