Central and South America people in ACS

1

I want to select people born in south and central America who were living in the USA at the time of the survey.

I found the category “Americas, ns” (299) in the birth place variable (general version). Is this category contains all people from central and south America? Or is there another category that contains this people? or Do I need to construct the variable by myself using bpl?

Also, this category (299) in bbl is only avaible from 2003 and later, is there another category that contains the same epople from previous surverys (before 2003)?

Thanks

2

As noted here, a “n.s.” after a label is indicative of “not stated”. Therefore, Americas, n.s. (code 299) would indicate those from the Americas (North, Central, South) that did not indicate a specific location. If you are interested in analyzing data on people born in Central and South America, I would recommend that you create a variable of your own based on the codes for Central America and South America in BPL. From the general codes, Central America is code 210 and South America is code 300. Detailed codes will reveal with specific Central and South American countries are included in these general codes. You will also see that these codes are available prior to 2003.