A discussion of the differences in volunteering rates in the panel study of income dynamics, the current population survey, and independent sector volunteering studies

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-432
Author(s):  
Rebecca Ann Nesbit
2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Nesbit

This article compares the volunteering data in the Center on Philanthropy’s Philanthropy Module of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, generally referred to as Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS), and the September volunteering supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS). In comparing survey methodologies, the author focuses on sample type and size, data collection procedures, response rates, and survey content. He also presents volunteering estimates from both datasets including an investigation of the uses of memory prompts and proxy responses for volunteering data. Both the COPPS and CPS volunteering data are high-quality datasets and each has relative advantages over the other. The COPPS data allow for longitudinal analysis and contain measures of charitable giving and religiosity; the CPS data’s larger sample size allows for state-level estimates and subgroup analyses. In both datasets, proxy responses generally underreport volunteering. Memory prompts in the volunteering surveys capture small amounts of additional volunteering by White, married, middle-aged women with larger households.


2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gueorgui Kambourov ◽  
Iourii Manovskii

The monthly Current Population Survey (CPS), with its annual demographic March supplement, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) are the leading sources of data on worker reallocation across occupations, industries, and firms. Much of the active current research is based on these data. In this paper, we contrast these data sets as sources of data for measuring the dynamics of worker mobility. We find that (i) (March) CPS data are characterized by a substantial amount of noise when it comes to identifying occupational and industry switches; (ii) March CPS data provide a poor measure of annual occupational mobility and, instead, most likely measure mobility over a much shorter period; (iii) (the changes in) the procedure to impute missing data have a dramatic effect on the interpretation of the CPS data in, e.g., the trend in occupational mobility. The most important shortcomings of the PSID are the facts that (i) occupational and industry affiliation data are available in most years at an annual frequency; (ii) the PSID's sample, by design, excludes immigrants arriving in the United States after 1968; (iii) the Retrospective Occupation–Industry Files with reliable occupation and industry affiliation data are available only until 1980.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107755872110008
Author(s):  
Edward R. Berchick ◽  
Heide Jackson

Estimates of health insurance coverage in the United States rely on household-based surveys, and these surveys seek to improve data quality amid a changing health insurance landscape. We examine postcollection processing improvements to health insurance data in the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC), one of the leading sources of coverage estimates. The implementation of updated data extraction and imputation procedures in the CPS ASEC marks the second stage of a two-stage improvement and the beginning of a new time series for health insurance estimates. To evaluate these changes, we compared estimates from two files that introduce the updated processing system with two files that use the legacy system. We find that updates resulted in higher rates of health insurance coverage and lower rates of dual coverage, among other differences. These results indicate that the updated data processing improves coverage estimates and addresses previously noted limitations of the CPS ASEC.


Author(s):  
Jun Zhang ◽  
Yanghao Wang ◽  
Steven T. Yen

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is designed to improve household diet and food security—a pressing problem confronting low-income families in the United States. Previous studies on the issue often ignored the methodological issue of endogenous program participation. We revisit this important issue by estimating a simultaneous equation system with ordinal household food insecurity. Data are drawn from the 2009–2011 Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS-FSS), restricted to SNAP-eligible households with children. Our results add to the stocks of empirical findings that SNAP participation ameliorates food insecurity among adults only, but increases the probabilities of low and very low food security among children. These contradictory results indicate that our selection approach with a single cross section is only partially successful, and that additional efforts are needed in further analyses of this complicated issue, perhaps with longitudinal data. Socio-demographic variables are found to affect food-secure households and food-insecure households differently, but affect SNAP nonparticipants and participants in the same direction. The state policy tools, such as broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE) and simplified reporting, can encourage SNAP participation and thus ameliorate food insecurity. Our findings can inform policy deliberations.


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