Hi all, I'm using the ACS 1-year PUMS files (2018) and am trying to determine how I can determine whether a respondent is head of household. I saw that on IPUMS there is the RELATE variable and the source variable for RELATE is the RELP variable. With RELP, does "reference person" refer to head of household? That's what IPUMS seems to imply but I'm not sure if I'm understanding that incorrectly. If someone would help me out, I'd greatly appreciate it!Thank you!
Seconding what others have said and adding a bit of context: Decennial Census (and ACS) haven't used the "head of household" terminology since 1980. In that year, to address concerns about gender bias and to better reflect the wide variety of living arrangements, terms switched to "Person 1" (or reference person.)
If you'd like some history on the subject and who responds as Person 1 there are some interesting readings:
Nancy Folbre and Marjorie Abel (1989), "Women's Work and Women's Households: Gender Bias in the U.S. Census" https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_faculty_pubs/125 Theresa J. DeMaio and Nancy A. Bates (1992), “Who Fills Out the Census Form,” https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/1992/adrm/sm92-06.pdf