Variables for data merging for March CPS samples before 1994.

CPS
1

Hi there,

I am trying to merge March CPS samples from 1984-1992 and it seems like there is no variable for household ID’s for that sample. I have identified LINENO, another variable that together with household ID, identifies unique person across data. The closest I got for household ID variable is the HRHID variable that is used to identify individuals within monthly sample, which is only available after 1994 and does not
correspond with my sample. Is there another variable I could use to identify households, or is data merging for samples before 1994 not possible at all?

Thank you in advance for your help!

2

Variables which would allow researchers to match respondents across March samples are not available in the IPUMS CPS samples prior to 1994.

There is still a way to match respondents in the 1984-1992 samples, however. The IPUMS files share a common sort order with the files available for download through NBER. Thus, you can perform a sequential merge to add the NBER identifiers onto the IPUMS files. Then, these NBER identifiers can be used to link respondents across samples.