Description

For all persons, BIRTHYR reports the person's year of birth.

BIRTHYR is a 4-digit-numeric variable.

9997: Unknown-Refused
9998: Not in Universe or Not Ascertained
9999: Unknown-Don't know

BIRTHYR is bottom coded to 89 years before the survey year (e.g. for 1997, bottom code is 1907: birth year 1907 and before; until 2001, when BIRTHYR is bottom coded to 84 years before the survey year (e.g. for 2002, bottom code is 1917: birth year 1917 and before).

Comparability

BIRTHYR is bottom-coded at 1906 in the 1996 MEPS sample to reflect the top-coding of age at 90 years; this bottom-code increased by one year with every annual MEPS sample, until 2001, when the change to a top code of 85 years for age resulted in a bottom code for BIRTHYR of 1916. This bottom-code also increased by one year with every annual MEPS sample. Otherwise, there are no comparability issues.

Universe

Availability

• 1996-2021

Weights

• 1996-2021 : PERWEIGHT

Flags