Family Structure and Income

Todd Sears over 9 years ago

I am working with a colleague to evaluate the median family income using PUMS data (in this case 2007-2011 5-year data that combines personal and household files based on serialno) and have run into a question about family structure versus household structure versus incomes.

For example, PUMS has some observations that look like the attached file (headers use PUMS variable names). All observations have the same serialno, the sporder 1-4 makes sense, the personal incomes (pincp) seem reasonable, and the household income (hincp) makes sense.

But, npf says the family size is 3 while the family income variable says every member of the household has the same family income? I would expect one member of the household would not have a family income (i.e. sporder = 1 to 4 but nfp=3 so one member of household is not a member of the family), or maybe the household has two families so it should have 2 different family incomes and the family sizes should all say 2. Suggestions about how to interpret this type of outcome, alternative variables to use, or errors in logic?

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Todd Sears over 9 years ago

Douglas/Doug, thanks for the suggestion re: RELP. Beth, thanks for the suggestion re: SFN. I've suddenly learned more about family structures that I ever intended :)

For anyone that might look up this string later, using the example I provided, RELP shows the household of 4 people is comprised of a householder, the householder's unmarried partner (the unmarried partner is not part of the "family"), the householder's sister, and the householder's in-law. The sister and in-law are a subfamily of the householder's family. The sister has no income and the in-law's income is part of the "family" income using the fincp variable. The unmarried partner's income is not part of the "family income" since by definition that person is not a member of the family.

It seems like an odd definition of family to include the sister/in-law but exclude the unmarried partner, but it is what it is. And, it seems a little more unusual when there is more than one subfamily (e.g. serialno 2011000737718 of the same dataset utilizing the SFN variable to evaluate), but again it is all about the definition of family and the concept that there can technically only be one formally defined family in a household.

Thanks for everyone's feedback/help!
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Todd Sears over 9 years ago

Douglas/Doug, thanks for the suggestion re: RELP. Beth, thanks for the suggestion re: SFN. I've suddenly learned more about family structures that I ever intended :)

For anyone that might look up this string later, using the example I provided, RELP shows the household of 4 people is comprised of a householder, the householder's unmarried partner (the unmarried partner is not part of the "family"), the householder's sister, and the householder's in-law. The sister and in-law are a subfamily of the householder's family. The sister has no income and the in-law's income is part of the "family" income using the fincp variable. The unmarried partner's income is not part of the "family income" since by definition that person is not a member of the family.

It seems like an odd definition of family to include the sister/in-law but exclude the unmarried partner, but it is what it is. And, it seems a little more unusual when there is more than one subfamily (e.g. serialno 2011000737718 of the same dataset utilizing the SFN variable to evaluate), but again it is all about the definition of family and the concept that there can technically only be one formally defined family in a household.

Thanks for everyone's feedback/help!
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