# Question regarding the Brazil 2000 census

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/question-regarding-the-brazil-2000-census/6389>\
**Category:** INTERNATIONAL\
**Created:** [March 6, 2025, 1:33pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/question-regarding-the-brazil-2000-census/6389 "2025-03-06T13:33:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Raoul\_van\_Maarseveen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecd19e/32.png) [@Raoul\_van\_Maarseveen](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Raoul_van_Maarseveen)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2025, 1:33pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/question-regarding-the-brazil-2000-census/6389/1 "2025-03-06T13:33:26Z")

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Dear IPUMS,

I had a brief question regarding the Brazil 2000 census. According to the documentation of the GEOMIG1\_P variable, it is available for “Persons who have lived outside of their current municipality during the last 10 years”.

Yet, if I run the command “tab geomig1\_p year if migyrs1 \> 10 & migyrs1 \< 20” in Stata, I receive values and states of previous residence for over a million individuals, even though I restrict attention specifically to those living in their current locality (i.e. municipality) of residence for more than 10 years.

Do you know where this difference may come from? Does this potentially have something to do with the harmonization of the municipalities for the public release data?

Best wishes and many thanks!  
Raoul

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**Author:** ![Ivan\_Strahof](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.ipums.org/ivan_strahof/32/626_2.png) [@Ivan\_Strahof](https://forum.ipums.org/u/Ivan_Strahof)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2025, 6:03pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/question-regarding-the-brazil-2000-census/6389/2 "2025-03-14T18:03:08Z")

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Thank you for bringing this to our attention and for your patience while I looked into your question.

IPUMS International recently applied additional universe standardization to our migration variables (see [this user guide for details](https://international.ipums.org/international/geo_mig.shtml)). Previously, some migration variables reported information on both recent movers and non-movers regarding their location of residence a certain number of years in the past, while other samples only collected this information from recent movers. Many of these variables are now standardized such that data is reported for all persons; non-movers are assigned their current location of residence. This is the case for the general migration variable [GEOMIG1\_P](https://international.ipums.org/international-action/variables/GEOMIG1_P#codes_section) and the Brazil-specific variable [MIG1\_P\_BR](https://international.ipums.org/international-action/variables/MIG1_P_BR#codes_section), which explains why you are seeing values of states of previous residence for those who report not having moved municipalities within the past ten years.

However, while the universe statement for MIG1\_P\_BR was edited to read “all persons”, we missed editing the corresponding universe statement for GEOMIG1\_P. The IPUMS International team is aware of this and will fix the documentation such that the universe statement for GEOMIG1\_P for Brazil samples will read “all persons”. I hope this clarifies how you can best proceed with analyzing the data. Please note also that “non-movers” can still be identified using the unharmonized source variables ([BR2000A\_PREVSTAT](https://international.ipums.org/international-action/variables/BR2000A_0451#codes_section)) or by comparing migration data to the state of current residence ([GEO1\_BR](https://international.ipums.org/international-action/variables/GEO1_BR#codes_section)), if your analysis requires examining them separately.