Hello! I am trying to estimate the number of direct care workers in the U.S. I was trying to get a reasonable comparison to the number of jobs as measured by BLS OES, so I was exploring people who work in multiple jobs in direct care and specifically using uh_occ2jb_b2.
The documentation for uh_occ2jb_b2 links to the 2003-10 occupation codes (IPUMS CPS) which have changed over time for direct care as expected. However, when I try to use these codes for years >=2020, I get sums of zero. When I tab uh_occ2jb_b2 for years 2020+, I see valid 2020+ SOC occupation codes for direct care (e.g. 3601, 3602, 3603, 3605) and am able to get weighted sums. Are changes in SOC occupational codes in uh_occ2jb_b2 overtime consistent with changes in “occ” overtime?
It sounds like you are encountering two issues. First, that your estimates of the number of direct care workers using CPS is not sufficiently close to the OEWS estimates. Second, that you are having a hard time capturing direct care occupations in your tabulations of the 2020-forward data.
It is important to note that the CPS and OEWS are quite different. CPS is a household survey that is representative of the US non-institutionalized civilian population. OEWS surveys establishments to produce employment and wage estimates for a subset of occupations. The surveys also use different coding schemes for reporting occupations. The OEWS uses the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) to report occupations. The CPS reports occupations using the Census Occupation codes, which are based on the SOC, but are a separate coding scheme; this is true for both main job (IPUMS CPS variable OCC ) and second job (IPUMS CPS variable UH_OCC2JB_B2). Both coding schemes are updated periodically (approximately every 10 years) to accurately reflect the labor market. This change is presumably causing the issue you describe where you cannot identify direct care workers in certain years of data.
As a result of these periodic updates, the specific codes associated with a given occupation change over time. For example, the 2002 classification scheme that you link to only applies to a subset of CPS samples (2003-2010) and it should not be used for samples outside of these years. Even if the same codes appear in the data, they may refer to a different occupation in the new vintage. You should instead use the 2010 classification scheme for samples from 2011-2019 and the 2018 classification scheme for samples from 2020-onwards. To assist in using occupation across time, IPUMS CPS uses Census Bureau crosswalks to recode occupations from each vintage into a single harmonized occupation system in the variable OCC2010. Since the basis of this system are 2010 Census occupations, this variable recodes occupations from all of the vintages to the 2010 system (see below for a brief example of tracing an occupation across time in these crosswalks). While data for OCC2010 recodes the occupation for the main job, you can use it to find which codes from each vintage map onto each other for your analysis for second reported jobs. This IPUMS blog post details how you can create this type of crosswalk.
Below is a screenshot from the crosswalk for the 2010 to 2018 census codes. It shows that the 2018 code for “Home health aides” (3601) is one of three new occupation codes that were created by splitting the 2010 code for “Nursing, Psychiatric, and Home Health Aides” (3600) into three codes (3601: Home Health Aids, 3603: Nursing Assistants, and 3605: Orderlies and Psychiatric Aides). The crosswalk also shows the SOC codes that are associated with the Census Occupation codes. Note that two additional SOC codes are displayed under the new 2018 OCC code 3605 to indicate this singular Census Occupation code is comprised of two distinct SOC codes.
A code of 3600 (for OCC or UH_OCC2JB_B2) in the 2011-2019 data (which uses the 2010-vintage codes) can be used to identify “nursing, Psychiatric, and Home Health Aides”; it is not, however, possible to differentiate among the three groups in the 2010-vintage (unlike the 2018-vintage where they are assigned their own categories). The IPUMS CPS variable OCC2010 would assign a record with OCC = 3601 in 2022 to OCC2010 = 3600. Note that it is also possible for a Census occupation code to change while keeping the same occupation title (look into Personal Care Aides between the 2010 and 2018 coding schemes for an example), or for the code to remain the same but be assigned a new occupation title.
