New free resource: IPUMS Higher Ed

From the Minnesota Population Center:

The Minnesota Population Center has released a new data project: IPUMS Higher Ed. IPUMS Higher Ed offers harmonized versions of the surveys incorporated into the NSF Scientists and Engineers Statistical Database (SESTAT).

IPUMS Higher Ed is composed of three National Science Foundation surveys of college degree holders in the United States: the National Survey of College Graduates, the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, and the National Survey of Recent College Graduates. Only the respondents who have a degree in science or engineering (or related fields) or work in a science or engineering occupation are included in the SESTAT file for that year. 

The surveys in IPUMS Higher Ed collect data on education history, labor force status, employer and academic institution characteristics, income, and work activities. SESTAT data have been used previously to study a wide variety of topics, including gender differences in the labor force and the presence of immigrants in the U.S. science and engineering workforce. 

The data can be accessed at no cost at highered.ipums.org.

Census Workshops at Davis Library, UNC - Open to all!

On November 16th (GIS Day), the Davis Library Research Hub will be hosting Jonathan Schroeder from the Minnesota Population Center (MPC). Attendance is free and open to the UNCG community. See the links below for times and more information.

Attendees will need to pay for parking. There are two visitor parking lots near Davis Library likely to have spaces at the times of these workshops:  the Raleigh Road Lot and the Rams Head Parking Lot.  The rate in these lots is $1.50 / hour.  In addition there are metered spaces along Raleigh Road, South Road and Country Club Drive with two-hour (or more) limits.  

Morning workshop

Intro to NHGIS: Geographic Data for U.S. Censuses from 1790 to the Present

The National Historical Geographic Information System (www.nhgis.org) provides free online access to summary tables and GIS boundary files for U.S. censuses and surveys going back to 1790. In addition to historical county and state data, NHGIS provides more recent data for all levels of census geography down to tracts and blocks. This workshop will familiarize participants with the breadth and depth of NHGIS resources and demonstrate how to use the NHGIS Data Finder to explore what’s available and download customized extracts.

Afternoon talk

NHGIS Time Series Tables: Harmonizing Geographic Census Data across Time

In recent years, NHGIS (www.nhgis.org) has begun releasing time series tables, which link together comparable statistics from multiple censuses in customized downloadable bundles. There are now thousands of time series available, organized into hundreds of tables, mainly covering statistics from the 1970-2010 censuses and the 2012 American Community Survey. The newest tables provide 2000 and 2010 statistics for 2010 census units at 10 geographic levels, including census tracts, block groups, ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, and census places. These tables use an advanced interpolation method to produce high-quality 2000 estimates where boundaries changed between censuses. Work is also underway to provide 1990 estimates for 2010 units. In this talk, I present an overview of current and planned NHGIS time series features, highlighting how they can simplify the measurement and mapping of changes in census data, demonstrating advantages of our interpolation approach relative to others in use, and previewing how we are addressing new estimation challenges as we extend tables to cover more years and subjects.

Updates to IPUMS-International

News for you from the Minnesota Population Center:

The Minnesota Population Center is pleased to announce the latest expansion of the IPUMS-International data series. We recently added 26 new samples. The data release includes 7 new countries -- Germany, Iran, Ireland, Jamaica, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Sudan -- as well as additional samples for 5 countries already in the database: Cambodia, Egypt, France, Palestine and Vietnam. The data series now contains 397 million person records from 185 censuses in 62 countries.

You can get more detail about the latest data release at https://international.ipums.org/international/news.shtml#new_data_june2011 or go directly to the variable list to see the content of the new samples at https://international.ipums.org/international-action/variables/group. The data series can be accessed at https://international.ipums.org/international/index.shtml.

We recently changed the way that users browse variables and make data extracts on our site. We welcome your feedback on this and any other aspect of IPUMS-International.

IPUMS-International rocks the world

World Cup style...OK, that was gratuitous, but IPUMS is almost as wonderful as the World Cup.

The Minnesota Population Center has loads of new goodies for all the data peeps out there. IPUMS-International recently announced the availability of 28 more census microdata samples, bringing the total to 158 (55 countries). They also have boundary files for many countries.

All is available to researchers and students at no cost from https://international.ipums.org/international Registration is required.

News from the Minnesota Population Center and IPUMS

Job posting and data announcement from Minn Pop Center and IPUMS:

POSITION OPENINGS
The Minnesota Population Center is recruiting a post-doctoral researcher to work on IPUMS-CPS; the start date is flexible. We also have immediate openings for Research Associates/Research Scientists to work on IPUMS-USA and two other projects. To obtain more information and download position announcements, please visit our website at http://www.pop.umn.edu/about-mpc/employment-opportunities/research-positions/

UPCOMING DATA RELEASES
The Census Bureau plans to release microdata from the 2008 American Community Survey (ACS) on September 22nd, 2009. We will produce an IPUMS version of this dataset within a week of its public release. The IPUMS version of the data will be available via the IPUMS-USA site. Finally, earlier today we released the IPUMS version of the 2009 March Current Population Survey, available on the IPUMS-CPS site at http://cps.ipums.org .

Check this website, if you are interested in the IPUMS mailing list.

If you use census data and haven't checked out the awesome efforts at the Minn Pop Center, then you really need to do so now. Like today. It will change your life. Promise.

American Time Use

The Maryland Population Research Center and the Minnesota Population Center are pleased to announce the release of the American Time Use Survey Data Extract Builder (ATUS-X). ATUS-X is designed to make it easy for researchers to work with data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Interested researchers can explore the ATUS Data Extract Builder at www.atusdata.org.

The central goal of the ATUS-X project is to make it easy for researchers to prepare ATUS data files that are ready for analysis. The current version of the ATUS Data Extract Builder allows researchers to:

• Extract data from 2003-2007, including the 2006 Eating and Health Module.
• Create measures of time in user-defined activity aggregations, broken out as desired by time of the day, by location and by whether the respondent was engaged in caring for children during the activity.
• Select personal and household characteristic variables for inclusion
  on the data extract.
• ATUS-X also provides researchers with accessible and comprehensive
  documentation.