Several questions on Outgoing Rotation Group data

CPS
1

I need to use the Outgoing Rotation Group data in order to analyze union membership.

I am doing online analysis (SDA).

From another question I found that it is necessary to use the following filters to extract the ORG data:

age(15+)

empstat(10-12)

classwkr(20-28)

mish(4,8)

Is this correct, and is it the only way to identify persons in the ORG?

Is the data base any different for the onlline analysis than if I were to do a data extract for, say, 2017?

Does the 2017 data base I access using the online analysis contain all the months for that year?

Also what is the difference in the data base available in IPUMS and using the Merged Outgoing Rotation Group data extracted by NBER?

Put another way: What does NBER MORG give me that I can’t get from IPUMS-CPS?

Does it give me more ORG data? Does it give me more variables?

2

I’ll try to address each of your questions individually:

The universe for the outgoing rotation group questions is exactly as you have noted: only civilians age 15 and older who are currently employed as a wage or salaried worker (not self-employed) and who are in month-in-sample 4 or 8. This page provides some very helpful notes about the outgoing rotation group/earner study.

The data in the online analysis tool (SDA) may vary slightly from that in IPUMS CPS. There may be some variables available in IPUMS CPS that are not available in SDA. Additionally, updates to the data that are immediately available through IPUMS CPS may not immediately be available through SDA. However, we keep a list of revisions here. Most significantly, and this also addresses your next question, SDA only has data from the March CPS ASEC samples, whereas you can download data from each month, as well as supplement topics, through IPUMS CPS.

As for the difference(s) between what is available through IPUMS CPS and NBER in relation to the outgoing rotation group: NBER releases data as merged outgoing rotation groups. That is, the outgoing rotation group households, which typically comprise a fourth of every basic monthly sample for a calendar year, are extracted and merged together. As such, NBER has one file per year. More information about the NBER MORG files, including the available variables, can be found here.

3

Hello Michelle:

I am relatively new to the IPUMS-CPS site and trying to use SDA tool for some quick analysis.

From your second paragraph, I see that SDA can only analyze data from March CPS ASEC samples. I think this is the reason for getting the message ‘cannot find variable xxxx’ when I enter some variables in ‘variable selection’ tab on the online tool.

Is there any way around this? Specifically, is there a way for me to choose a specific sample for analysis (say from the basic monthly)? Or is downloading and working on another software my only option?

Thanks,
Smriti.

4

Unfortunately there is currently no way to analyze basic monthly CPS samples using the IPUMS online analysis tool. You’ll need to download the data to your computer and use a statistical software package.

5

Thank you for your reply. To the best of my knowledge, this information is not available on the website or tool help page. I would appreciate it if some indication were in place. My apologies if I missed them.

Regards,
Smriti.