Full Citation

Title: Missing Black Men? The Impact of Under-Reporting on Estimates of Black Male Labor Market Outcomes

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2018

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Abstract: It is well documented by demographers that there is a long and persistent under-coverage of adult black males in the US Census. Despite this, the census undercount has been largely ignored in research using census data. Similar omission patterns also exist in other household based surveys, such as the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. I demonstrate that estimates of the undercount that rely on counts from vital statistics data are understated and provide estimates of the undercount of prime age black men in household-based survey data that are robust to under-coverage in vital statistics data. Because the incarcerated are automatically included in the Census, the population at risk of becoming incarcerated provides a unique opportunity for the identification of non-reporter characteristics. I use variation in incarceration by state and year to estimate the impact of increases in incarceration on non-reporting. I find that 90 percent of the incarcerated population would have been non-reporting had they not been incarcerated. Applying reasonable estimates of the size of the population at risk of incarceration, I conclude that non-reporting is almost entirely driven by the population at risk of incarceration. I then use data from the Survey of Inmates on labor market outcomes of inmates prior to incarceration to impute outcomes for the non-reporting population. Accounting for non-reporting meaningfully increases estimated gaps in black-white educational attainment , unemployment rates, and annual earnings.

Url: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/ariellakahn-lang/files/kahn-lang_jmp_20181110.pdf

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Kahn-Lang, Ariella

Publisher: Harvard University

Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS CPS

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Race and Ethnicity

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