Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
历史人口普查微观数据中的女性劳动力参与
Female labor force participation in historical census microdata
摘要
How reliable is historical microdata? Understanding historical labor force participation is crucial for assessing long-term trends in economic development and intergenerational mobility. Most existing historical studies are, however, limited to men, and little is known about how reliable quantitative historical sources are when studying labor market outcomes for women. This paper documents that the measurement of women’s economic activity in the 1910 Norwegian population census had a high level of consistency. There is extensive discussion of measurement issues in historical census reports, micro data can reproduce historical census tables with a high degree of accuracy, and other contemporary reports such as industrial censuses and tax statistics confirm the results found in the census. In addition, a double-enumeration feature of the Norwegian census is leveraged to assess consistency between enumerators, finding no indication that precision in the occupational classification of women is any lower than for men. Some potential sources of downward bias are found in the historical census microdata set provided by IPUMS. Based on the results in this paper, historical census data appears well suited to study economic activity using modern econometric methods, for women as well as men. A slight upward revision of the 39% female labor force participation in Norway in 1910 might be in order.
中文摘要
历史微观数据的可靠性如何？理解历史劳动力参与率对于评估经济发展和代际流动的长期趋势至关重要。然而，现有的大多数历史研究仅限于男性，关于定量历史资料在研究女性劳动力市场结果时的可靠性知之甚少。本文记录了1910年挪威人口普查中女性经济活动测量的高度一致性。历史普查报告中对测量问题有广泛讨论，微观数据能够高度准确地重现历史普查表格，而其他当代报告如工业普查和税收统计也证实了普查中的结果。此外，利用挪威普查的双重登记特性来评估普查员之间的一致性，未发现女性职业分类的精确度低于男性的迹象。在IPUMS提供的历史普查微观数据集中发现了一些潜在的下行偏差来源。基于本文的结果，历史普查数据似乎非常适合使用现代计量经济学方法研究经济活动，无论是对女性还是男性。对1910年挪威39%的女性劳动力参与率进行轻微上调可能是合适的。