Dear IPUMs,
I’m constructing a ethnic fractionalization variable at the municipal level using the 2010 Brazil census data. I looked up the amount of unique municipal values using the geo2_brx in Stata and found it to be 1,524. I find this odd because I know that the number of municialities in Brazil in 2010 is around 5,560. Could anyone please tell me why is this is so?
Best,
Chingun
Part of the process of data harmonization is regionalizing geographical units with relatively small populations. This process is done primarily for maintaining confidentiality procedures and also privileging contiguity and similarity in population density. The Comparability tab on the geo2_brx variable states the following:
This variable does not account for boundary changes, but users should be aware that there might have been changes over time.
Where officially-defined municipalities have populations less than 20,000, they have been regionalized (combined) with neighboring municipalities.
Ah okay. I understand now. Thanks a lot for the help.
Hi Jeff. Thanks again for answering the question. I wanted to follow up and ask if there is way for me to access the unharmonized data? It would really help my research out. -Chingun