4.19  Industries

Chapter 4 contents

Open-ended questions (e.g., "What kind of business or industry is/was this?") were included in each interview and used to code the industry of the respondent's current job or current/last job. In addition, the industry of intervening jobs was coded for each personal interview beginning in 1969 and for each dual job reported in a personal interview beginning in 1972. Verbatim responses to this question are coded by Census personnel using three-digit codes from the 1960, 1980, 1990, and 2000 classification systems (Census 1960, 1980, 1990, and 2000). Two- and one-digit edited versions of these raw variables are available for most survey years for 1960 codes. Table 4.19.1 summarizes the years in which each of the various coding systems were used. The User Notes at the end of this section contain an extensive discussion of the Census/CHRR editing and creation procedures that affect the industry variables.

Table 4.19.1 Industry Coding Systems Used by Survey Year

The first survey included a retrospective collection of respondents' work experience prior to the first interview, which asked about the industry of the job held one year ago and that held during the last year of high school. In 1973, 1978, and 1983, five-year retrospectives contained a question on the industry of the job held in February 1968, and that of the longest job held since January 1973 and since January 1978. Other related variables for single survey years include (1) the industry of an alternative job that those respondents who reported job-shopping while remaining employed with the same firm indicated that they could have had and/or had been offered (1973) and (2) two created variables that indicate the industry of the last job held before and after the birth of the respondent's first child (1973).

Present for each survey year through 1993, edited variables from the Occupation & Industry (O & I) Rewrite provide one-, two-, and three-digit versions of the raw current/last job variables. Beginning in 1986, several versions of the current/last job variables (e.g., edited and unedited, collapsed and noncollapsed) are also available.

Tables 4.19.2 and 4.19.3 provide information about the number of respondents working in broad industrial sectors in selected survey years.

Table 4.19.2 Industrial Sector of Respondents' Current/Last Job--Selected Survey Years

Table 4.19.3  Industrial Sector of Respondents' CPS Job 2000 Census Code by Survey Year: 1995-2003

Survey Instruments & Documentation: Questions about industry affiliation can be found in the regularly fielded "Current Labor Force Status," "Work Experience & Attitudes," "Work History," "Retrospective Work History," "Employment," and "Employer Supplement" sections and the special 1968 "Previous Work Experience," 1973 "Family Background," and 1983 "Attitudes" sections of the questionnaire. Part One and Appendix H of "Attachment 2: 1960, 1980 & 1990 Census of Population Industrial & Occupational Codes" in the Codebook Supplement (PDF) provide listings by industry of the relevant one-, two-, and three-digit codes. (2000 Codes can be found online at www.census.gov). Appendices 23 and 24 of the Codebook Supplement (PDF) provide derivations for the job before and after birth variables.

Previously, variable titles for occupations listed within the various NLS documentation items did not always specify which Census coding system was utilized. If no year is listed, users should assume that the 1960 classification was used for coding. Recent releases added the year to the title indicating which Census system was used.

Substantive differences exist between a number of similarly titled occupation, industry, and class of worker variables present in the Original Cohort data files. One set of raw variables relating to the respondent's current job is derived from responses to questions found within the "CPS" section of each questionnaire. Additional versions of this set of variables are created using the two different procedures described below.

(1) An Occupation & Industry (O & I) Rewrite creates a set of seven summary variables that enable researchers to identify the last occupation, industry, or class of worker status of all respondents who were interviewed in a given year, whether or not they were currently working. Values utilized are either those from the job in which the respondent was employed the week before the interview or values from the job that was current at the last time the respondent reported employment. Although the industry associated with an intervening job might technically be a respondent's most recent industry affiliation, the O & I program is not designed to pick up information from such jobs. All O & I Rewrite variables are classified utilizing the 1960 Census codes. Titles for this set of O & I Rewrite variables appear in Table 4.19.4.

Table 4.19.4  Occupation & Industry Variables from the O & I Rewrite

The user can differentiate O & I Rewrite variables from non-backfilled variables by the presence of the word "collapsed" at the end of the O & I variable title. This series ended in 1993 because the 1960 codes no longer matched the U.S.'s industrial structure.

(2) When Census originally created the 'Employment Status Recode' (ESR) variables, no cleaning or editing of the items from the "CPS" section of the questionnaire was done. In the mid-1980s, recurring problems with the program that created the ESR variables forced Census to create edited "CPS" items. Census sends both unedited and edited versions of these items to CHRR for public release. Edited variables are identified with either the word "EDITED" or the abbreviations "EDT" or "E" appended to the variable title. Edited versions of these variables will have fewer cases than the unedited versions. When looking at patterns over time, users may wish to use the set of unedited versions. Following the inception of the computer-assisted surveys in 1995, this situation no longer holds true and researchers will only find one version of the CPS variables.

References

Census Bureau. 1960 Census of Population Alphabetical Index of Occupations and Industries (Revised Edition). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960.

Census Bureau. 1980 Census of Population Classified Index of Industries and Occupations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980.

Census Bureau. Census of Population and Housing, 1990, Alphabetical Index of Industries and Occupations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990.