Have set up Chicago-only 1-year PUMS person and household datasets for 2012-2022 (no 2020). Want to attach household record to each person record. Sorted by sample and serial, 54% of household records are still not unique. Is there a third mysterious variable that will produce unique household records that I can then attach to person records with the same unique sort?
Using 1-year to look at trend; plan to push it a bit further back in time.
By default, IPUMS USA data are person-level microdata, meaning each row or observation is a person. Each column is a variable that describes a person-level characteristic or household-level characteristic; household-level variables are automatically appended to person records.
In IPUMS USA, the two variables SAMPLE and SERIAL uniquely identify households. The three variables SAMPLE, SERIAL, and PERNUM uniquely identify persons. While SAMPLE and SERIAL uniquely identify households, if your data extract includes person records as well as household records (as you stated), you will still have multiple observations associated with many of the households; many households include multiple household members. If your data extract includes only household records, then you will have just one observation per household.
If you prefer to create a data extract that includes only household records (and no information about persons), you can select this option when you create your data extract:
