Hello,
I was wondering if anyone knows if the 0 code for NCHILD guarantees that zero children are present or if Not in Universe here means that children may be present but that there’s just no data. I’m looking at average EITC receipt by family type and didn’t want to overcount filers with no children.
I know NCHILD comes from RELATE which has an explicit 9999 NIU code. How is this uncertainty carried through to the NCHILD 0 code?
Thank you for any help or advice!
Danny
While NCHILD relies on information in RELATE, it is not exclusively defined by RELATE. The universe of the NCHILD variable is all persons. There is no code for NIU because all respondents are in universe. I see that the codes section of the variable states “0 = N.I.U. (Not in Universe; Zero children present.” This is not accurate. The 0 code corresponds to zero children. We thank you for bringing this error in the documentation to our attention, and we will have it updated in the near future. As a side note, the NIU values in RELATE are not in recent years of data.
Okay great that makes sense, thank you