Hello,
In October 2023, I downloaded the ACS 2019 5-year sample for use in a paper. This week, I also downloaded the ACS 2019 5-year sample together with the 1% files from 2021, 2022, and 2023 to conduct a supplementary analysis testing whether the patterns I observed between 2015–2019 hold in more recent years. I deliberately excluded 2020 to avoid COVID complications.
Several of my measures rely on OCC2010, which appears to have been revised in August 2025. As a result, the occupation codes in the ACS 2019 5-year sample I originally downloaded in October 2023 are not directly comparable with the samples I downloaded recently. The crosswalk listed in Williams & Flood (pp. 21–27) does not appear to fully account for all of the changes (for example, codes 40 and 50 do not appear in the earlier version of OCC2010 and are not included in the crosswalk). This also applies to cases that are listed in the crosswalk. For instance, in the earlier version of 2019 5-year file (downloaded in 2023), about 93% of individuals coded as registered nurses (OCC2010 = 3130) are now classified as nurse practitioners (3258), anesthetists (3256), or registered nurses (3255) under the revised scheme (in the version I downloaded this week), while roughly 7% are reassigned elsewhere.
For my supplementary analysis, I need an OCC2010 variable in the 2021–2023 1% files that is fully comparable to the older OCC2010 version used in the 2019 5-year sample prior to the 2025 revisions. I understand that modal assignment was used in most contested cases, but is there a way to completely replicate the pre-2025 version of OCC2010 for consistency across samples?
Let me know what you recommend. Thanks!
Emily Curran