Using the census survival method to calculate net flows across employment states between 1900 and 1910, finds that approximately one-fifth of all men who reached the age of 55 eventually retired before death. Many of these retirees appear to have planned their withdrawal from paid employment by accumulating assets, becoming self-employed, and then liquidating their assets to provide a stream of income to finance consumption in old age. This "modern" retirement behavior has important implications for the economic history of capital and labor markets, saving and investment, insurance and pensions, and the family economy.

This paper describes our project to electronically disseminate the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS). The IPUMS—the world’s largest publicly available demographic database—is a coherent series of individual-level census data drawn from eleven census years between 1850 and 1990. Prior to the IPUMS, the U.S. census samples were a haphazard assortment of files created by different researchers at different times, each with its own unique record layout and coding

Argues that the labor force statistics based on the 1880 federal census and published by the US Census Office are not as accurate as is often believed. This is demonstrated by using Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) to determine the percentages of youths, married women, and older men who participated in the labor force. In each case, the percentages achieved through the PUMS are significantly higher than those reported by the Census Office. The reason for this is because the superintendent of the 1880 census, Francis Amasa Walker, selectively edited the data that he received from census enumerators. Walker was particularly determined not to include those persons employed in part-time or illegal work, and thus, his labor force statistics tended to undercount many persons.

Objective. This paper provides new information about the decline in southern fertility that occurred between 1910 and 1940. Two objectives guide the investigation. The first is to determine the contribution of shifting marriage patterns and altered marital childbearing to the overall change in fertility that occurred between 1910 and 1940. The second is to estimate the influence of a variety of structural changes on shifts in marriage patterns and marital fertility. Methods. Unlike most previous studies this analysis focuses specifically on fertility change, rather than static cross-sectional differences across geographic areas. Fertility change and structural change are measured for state economic areas (SEAs) within the South. Results. The findings show that southern fertility fell mainly because of a reduced pace of childbearing by married couples, rather than less exposure to marital fertility. Further, marital fertility decline was sharper in areas that experienced larger reductions in the number of farms per capita, and greater increases in education and manufacturing activity. Marriage became less common in SEAs that saw growth in manufacturing opportunities. Conclusions. Support for demand theories of fertility decline is inferred from the findings. However, the possible contribution of nonstructural forces to southern fertility decline is also acknowledged.

In evaluating the application of quantitative methods to historical micro - data in Canadian economic history, the authors focus on contributions to that branch of "micro" economic history marked by the collection and analysis of data describing personal and household economic and social characteristics. This approach involves the use of primary historical records, such as census manuscripts, probate records, assessment rolls, land records, and parish records. The authors outline several illustrative studies, and offer a number of reasons why such studies have failed to make more significant impacts on the interpretation of Canadian history. They conclude that there has been a cautious underinvestment in such studies in Canada, partly as a result of the poor quality and incompleteness of the surviving census data, which have limited the applicability of formal economic models by economic historians. They offer several suggestions for better coordination of multi - disciplinary research efforts and wider dissemination of micro - data sets among quantitative historians.

The comparative use of census data is a useful way to study social characteristics across national boundaries. However, truly comparative demographic history is not possible without fully integrating separate census data, uniting multiple data files with a common set of comparably coded variables. This paper describes the integration of the 1871 Canadian census public use sample with similar samples of the 1850 and 1880 American censuses to form the Integrated Canadian-American Public Use Microdata Series (ICAPUMS). These data sets lent themselves well to integration because of their strong similarities in sampling design, data collection and data organization. Consistency in the availability and treatment of variables also eased integration of the samples, although the harmonization of occupation variables presented significant challenges. The ICAPUMS features a general household relationship variable which allows us to examine household structure across the two countries and three years. The paper concludes by proposing some general principles of census data set integration. This integrated data set is now available to researchers on the website of the University of Minnesota Historical Census Projects (www.hist.umn.edu/(sic)ipums).

Historians have long depended on occupational data to gauge social mobility, class position, and the status of groups. Occupational classification schemes have varied over time, but they have generally been consistent since most have been tied to the practices of the US Census Bureau. When income is considered in combination with occupation, the relative social status of men's occupations appears to have been very stable during the first half of the 20th century. While social and economic change during this period was quite dramatic, most of it was absorbed by redistributing people among occupations rather than movement in the relative standing of occupations.

scusses the general design of the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), an enumeration procedure used in the United States census. Challenges in planning the IPUMS; Moves to create integrated documentation of public use samples.

Discusses the methods by which the effects of sampling errors that occur in Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) are reduced. PUMS are random samples taken from the decennial censuses since 1850 that can be used to determine American social trends over time. Because the samples are entire household units, they are referred to as cluster samples, which sometimes produce a relatively high incidence of error. This problem is solved by providing design factors for variables such as age, sex, and marital status. Design factors are based on the standard error for each cluster, which in turn is based on standard deviation. These design factors allow for more accurate use of the PUMS, as does the technique of stratification. This involves separating the cluster populations into strata by certain key characteristics, such as household size, home ownership, and race. Stratification has the beneficial effect of further reducing the standard error in cluster samples. An appendix discusses the process by which the PUMS cluster samples for each census were created.

This paper uses the 1910 Census Public Use Sample to examine how the presence and activities of key family members shaped the labor force activity, domestic work, and schooling of working-age daughters. There is no evidence that daughters worked to send their brothers to school; parents practiced a more egalitarian distribution of resources than the literature suggests. Having brothers and sisters in school increased a daughter's odds of attending school herself. Similarly, daughters with employed siblings were more likely to be gainfully employed. Nonetheless, parents allocated activities to sons and daughters in ways that reinforced traditional gender roles. Working brothers increased daughters' likelihood of working in the home, while reducing their odds of attending school.

The Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) consist of random information samples of households that have been taken from the US decennial censuses since 1850. Because the samples also include information about individuals in a household, the PUMS can provide information about household size, composition, and fertility. The PUMS from the various censuses are incompatible due to differences in census-taking techniques, however, and for this reason the Social History Research Laboratory at the University of Minnesota has developed the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) to help researchers gauge changes over time. A series of IPUMS variables can be used to identify familial relationships as well as information about individuals in the samples. The original samples often do not have this information. The IPUMS variables can be used to identify parents, stepparents, spouses, and siblings, while others can provide information on household composition and size. The appendix discusses the procedures that were used to construct these IPUMS variables.