How Well Can We Track Cohabitation Using the SIPP? A Consideration of Direct and Inferred Measures

Author(s)/Creator(s)

Reagan Anne Baughman, Syracuse UniversityFollow
Stacy Dickert-Conlin
Scott Houser

Description/Abstract

Cohabitation is an alternative to marriage and to living independently for an increasing number of Americans. Despite this fact, research exploring links between living arrangements and economic behavior is limited by a lack of data that explicitly identify cohabiting couples. To aid researchers in using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) rich data for cohabitation issues, our paper considers direct and inferred measures of cohabitation. Our findings suggest that: (1) the best inferred measures in pre-1966 SIPP depends upon a researcher's goals, and (2) the SIPP counts a larger number of cohabiting couples than the widely used CPS.

Document Type

Working Paper

Date

2000

Keywords

Marriage, marital dissolution, family structure, cohabitation, Survey of Income and Program Participation, SIPP

Language

English

Series

Working Papers Series

Disciplines

Family, Life Course, and Society

Additional Information

Harvest from RePEc at http://repec.org

Recommended Citation

Baughman, Reagan Anne; Dickert-Conlin, Stacy; and Houser, Scott, "How Well Can We Track Cohabitation Using the SIPP? A Consideration of Direct and Inferred Measures" (2000). Center for Policy Research. 125.
https://surface.syr.edu/cpr/125

Source

Metadata from RePEc