Work hours discrepancy?

USA
1

Hi, I obtained data from ACS and the 1980/1990 “5%” files and am examining usual hours worked ( UHRSWORKLY )
The IPUMS-provided codebook describes this variable as quasi-continuous, with response options ranging from 0-99 (top-code). However, the data file I received has it coded from 0-9, rather than 0-99. Looking at the individual year codes (i.e., US1980A_HOURS79, US1990A_HOUR89) it seems like the discrepancy happened between 1980 and 1990.

I’m going to use these data to look at various trends among full-time employees (e.g., 35+ hours/week), so want to make sure I’m capturing the right respondents. Does anyone have an accurate codebook or a work-around for this? Thanks in advance!

2

The variable UHRSWORKLY is available in IPUMS CPS, but not IPUMS USA. The variables for usual hours worked in IPUMS USA is UHRSWORK; however, this variable is not intervalled. I see values ranging from 0-99 as expected for UHRSWORK in my extracted 1980 and 1990 5% Census data samples; I also see values ranging from 0-99 for the two source variables you referenced (US1980A_HOURS79, US1990A_HOUR89). Is it possible you are looking at the HRSWORK2, which reports the number of hours worked the previous week in intervals (HRSWORK1 reports a precise number of hours instead) rather than the usual number of hours worked?