Mother and Father Place of Birth Vars

[Angubeen_Khan]

Hello,

I noticed that the IPUMS ACS 5 year estimates for 2020 and onward years, no longer has the variable for mother and fathers place of birth. When I downloaded the 2020 ACS 5 Year Estimates data for my dissertation in 2022, these two variables (mother’s and father’s place of birth) were still available. I am finishing up and planning to soon submit my analysis which focused on neighborhood context and healthcare access among MENA and South Asian first and second generation individuals in California. Therefore, the mother and father’s place of birth variables were critical for developing the final analytic sample for the analysis.

I have four questions:

1. Is there a reason the mother and father place of birth variables are no longer available for download on the IPUMS data extract for 2020 and/or onward, 5-Year Estimates data?
2. I was hoping to update my analysis with the most recent 5-Year Estimates data (2023) as some publishers prefer the use of the most recent data available. However, given that the data extraction tool no longer allows us to download the mother and father’s place of birth variable in our extract, is there any issue with sticking with the data I already have downloaded (version of the 2020 5- Year estimates data that was available back in 2022).
3. Is there any issue in using a version of the data extract I created in 2022 that had those variables available. I ask this because I noticed that if I were to download the same extract today, the mother and father place of birth variables are no longer available.
4. Finally, is there any way to make the mother and father place of birth variables available to us, or does this require additional costs and an application? Or if we include these data in our analysis now, do we have to make a note on our publications acknowledging that those two variables are no longer available via the IPUMS data extract tool?

Thank you so much for your help!

[Ivan_Strahof]

The ACS has never asked respondents to provide their parents’ place of birth. Since respondents report their own place of birth, IPUMS, by identifying and linking parents with their co-resident children, is able to offer the characteristics of participants’ parents as additional variables using the attach characteristics tool. In the case of mother’s and father’s place of birth, the variables that are created in this process are BPL_MOM and BPL_POP. These are not available for selection as regular variables; you will first need to add BPL to your data cart. Once you’ve done this and continued to the extract request options menu, you will see a button to Attach Characteristics (see screenshot below). When you click this, you should see the option to attach BPL values for the household head, mother, father, and spouse.

As I mentioned previously, it is only possible to obtain a respondent’s mother’s/father’s BPL value in cases where we are able to identify their mother/father from among the person records within the household. If we do not identify mother/father in the household, then BPL_MOM/BPL_POP will be missing. As a result, this is not an appropriate method for measuring parental birthplace at a population level. More information about this procedure is provided in the linking variables MOMLOC and POPLOC.