How many people leave their job due to retiring? It seems that variable WHYLEFT cannot be compared to EMPSTAT.

CPS
1

I would like to determine flows out of the labor force which occur due to retirements. I can calculate the number of people who left their job due to retirement from WHYLEFT and I can also use variable WNLWNILF to narrow down the retirements number to people who have worked within the past 12 months. I would like to be able to compare these resulting numbers to totals from EMPSTAT or LABFORCE.

It seems to me that it is not easy to compare the WHYLEFT variable in IPUMS CPS to EMPSTAT or LABFORCE.

The universe for the WHYLEFT variable in IPUMS CPS is civilians (of certain age) in rotation groups 4 or 8. It seems that EMPSTAT or LABFORCE are not limited to these rotation groups, and it is not possible to condition on rotation groups 4 or 8 when examining EMPSTAT or LABFORCE because variable ROTATE is not available for the same time period as variable WHYLEFT.

Do you have any suggestions, on how I could compare WHYLEFT to EMPSTAT or LABFORCE? I would like to do this by broad indutry: manufacturing and private services.

Thank you!

Simona

2

The variable MISH (Month in Sample) provides the same information as ROTATE for the samples collected after 1967. Using MISH you can limit your sample to those in rotation groups 4 and 8 to compare WHYLEFT with EMPSTAT or LABFORCE. Also, most variables that are restricted to Rotation Groups 4 and 8 (including WHYLEFT) are actually a part of the Earner Study and should be analyzed using the EARNWTweight variable.

I hope this helps.