User Note - Family Interrelationship Variables
By design, MEPS is a household survey, enabling the use of the MEPS data to estimate associations between family structure or characteristics of other household members and health-related outcomes of interest. Users interested in exploring the relationships among household members should note the existence of a set of family interrelationship variables created by IPUMS staff that impose a consistent and transparent approach to the identification of a person's (probable) coresident spouse/partner and/or parent(s). These family interrelationship variables are used by our extract system to allow users to seamlessly attach the characteristics of other household members -- characteristics like spouse's race or employment status, parental health status, or cohabiting partner's health insurance status -- as new variables on the extract. For instructions on how to attach the characteristics of other household members as new variables to your extract, please see this blog post or video example.
IPUMS MEPS family interrelationship variables vs. MEPS relationship to reference person
The original MEPS data includes a variable (RELATE) that shows how an individual household member is related to a reference person. However, relationships among other household members described by this variable may be ambiguous. For example, in a household with a "householder", two "children", and one "grandchild," it is not immediately clear who the parent of the "grandchild" is. In contrast, IPUMS MEPS uses additional information--including age, sex, and marital status--to infer relationships between persons who are not the family reference person thereby reducing ambiguity about these relationships.
These IPUMS MEPS family interrelationship variables are available for all years of MEPS and are comparable across years (as well as across US IPUMS datasets). IPUMS MEPS family interrelationship variables identify the location in the household of each person's spouse (SPLOC), mother (MOMLOC), and father (POPLOC). Additional variables (MOMLOC2 and POPLOC2) are used to identify a second parent of the same-sex. IPUMS MEPS also provides detailed rule variables for each these spouse/partner (SPRULE) and parent location variables (MOMRULE, POPRULE, MOM2RULE, POP2RULE), which report how a spouse/partner and parent location variables were inferred and the level of ambiguity around that inference.
There are a few key differences between the IPUMS MEPS family interrelationship variables and those provided by AHRQ in the original public use files:
- Availability
- Types of relationships included
- Attaching characteristics of a person's spouse/partner and parents
Availability
The IPUMS MEPS variables are available at the annual-level (full-year consolidated files) for all samples years, and are broadly comparable over the time series. Users can add those variables to all extract formats (rectangular on person or round, hierarchical and wide). AHRQ offers its own variable of the location of a person's spouse (SPOUSEPNUM) at the annual-level (full-year consolidated files). AHRQ derived this variable from respondents' own reports during household rostering, and edited those reports to ensure consistency with each individual's age, sex, and other relationships in the household. Similarly, AHRQ also offers respondents-reported location of parents and spouse in the household at the round-level (MOMPIDRD, POPPIDRD, SPOUSEPNUMRD).
Where AHRQ relies on respondents reports, IPUMS MEPS uses a two-stage protocol that uses information on age, sex, marital status, and relationship to householder to identify a person's probable spouse/partner and parents; this makes the IPUMS family interrelationship variables available for all years of data. The two-stage protocol first prioritizes links by clarity of relationship, and then selects the most appropriate spouse/partner or parent location when choosing among multiple potential links. The logic used to assign the links is consistent over time, and clearly communicated via the corresponding rule variable.
Types of relationships included
IPUMS MEPS protocol for assigning family interrelationships accounts for same-sex and cohabiting couples. Moreover, many non-matched parent locations between AHRQ and IPUMS MEPS assignments are not the assignment of a wrong parent, but the assignment of an additional parent. Both AHRQ and IPUMS MEPS identify social relationships instead of exclusively biological relationships. Importantly, AHRQ requires marriage between partners to assign values for SPOUSEPNUM and SPOUSEPNUMRD, whereas IPUMS MEPS pointers additionally assign SPLOC values to householders living with an unmarried partner (under code 30 of the variable RELATE). All cases of this discrepancy can be obtained under code 21 of the variable SPRULE.
Attaching characteristics
Finally, users may use the IPUMS MEPS "Attach Characteristics" feature to add include information about a person's spouse or parent as a variable on the individual person record. Users simply add the variables and sample years of interest to their IPUMS MEPS data cart and proceed to creating their data extract as per usual. However, from the Extract Request page, users can choose to "Attach Characteristics." Selecting this button will bring the user to a page where they create new variables that attach the characteristics for a person's spouse, mother, or father for each variable that is already in the user's data cart.
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