Friday, September 29, 2006

Updated Products - CBP

Canadian Business Patterns - June 2006

The Canadian Business Patterns contains data that reflect counts of business establishments by: 9 employment size ranges, including "indeterminate" (as of December 1997); geography groupings: province/territory, census division, census subdivision, census metropolitan area and census agglomeration; and Standard Industrial Classification which classifies each establishment in Canada into a specific industry (tables at the 1, 2, 3 and 4-digit level). Since the

December 1998 reference period, these data are also presented using the North American Industry Classification System (tables at the 2, 3, 4 and 6-digit level). A concordance table showing the relationships between both classification systems is included with the product.

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/cbp.htm
FTP: dli/cbp/2006

Question & Answer

Q: Why on the web version is there just a small file stating that it has to be downloaded by DLI contacts? This really doesn't allow us to download it from the web using a password. There is no way of downloading it from there, you have to go to the DLI FTP site to actually get it. I went to the FTP site and got the file, but it seems that the web link is actually misleading.

A: When you click on a file with a little lock next to it (data files), it brings you to another web page explaining the restricted access. There is a link at the bottom of the explanation page to access the collection. When you click on the link, a pop-up screen appears and requests your user name and password - just enter your contact info - same as the FTP site.

Economic Regions

Question

In certain Statistics Canada publications, such as 71-001, statistics are given for "economic regions" within provinces and territories. However, there is no map in this publication indicating the boundaries of the economic regions. I know I have encountered them both in print and electronic sources, but I can't recall where. Could someone please jog my memory?

Also, could someone from Statistics Canada who is reading this message please contact the appropriate Statistics Canada unit that publishes 71-001-PPB and urge that the map of the economic regions be included. Because without it, data for economic regions are incomplete if not meaningless.

Answers

1. I can tell you where the map should be available on the STC website but isn't. Specifically, it should be under the "Definitions, data sources and methods", "Geographic classifications", "Geography 2001" section:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Subjects/Standard/sgc/2001/2001-er-classmenu.htm

This page has links to maps, which should show the Economic Regions but instead links to maps of the provinces and the wider Region names (not the economic regions within a province.)

Since Economic Regions are a standard geographic concept, one would expect to find their visual representation under the "standards" section of the STC website.

Where you will find the ER map is under the geography reference maps of the Census.

http://geodepot.statcan.ca/Diss/Maps/ReferenceMaps/index_e.cfm

2. There is also an alternative: The Guide to the Labour Force Survey (71-543-GIE) tells you which CDs compose the economic region boundaries.

3. This is in reference to your request to have economic maps included in our monthly publication (71-001). A few years ago, the maps were included in the HTML version of the publication but we had to remove them because of a new rule/policy stating that whatever was available in the HTML version also had to be available in PDF. Since each economic region and census metropolitan area required a page and there are many regions, this would increase the paper count of our publication three-fold, increasing the cost of the paper publication.

We have found another way, however, of providing the maps. At the end of the publication, we will include a link to the Geographic regions on the website, including census metropolitan areas, economic regions and employment insurance regions. This will be available in the ' Data Quality' section of the 71-001 publication. The paper (PDF) version will have the actual address of the maps on the STC website. The HTML version will have a direct link.

We are working on it now and it should be available in 71-001 for the October 5th LFS release of September data. If not, it will be available for the next release in November.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Pregnant Workers

Question

I've had a request for information on pregnant workers in Canada. Specifically, a count or estimate of the number of pregnant workers in any one year, and also whatever demographic information I can find, preferably at the provincial level or better.

I've found information on number of women taking maternity leave, but I've been unable to find anything that would let us estimate the number of women who work during some part of their pregnancy, either full or part-time, who don't have maternity leave. Most surveys of the general population don't seem to ask about pregnancy.

Is there anything obvious I'm missing?

Answer

We have a few surveys which might be of interest, but the vintage is a little old :

1) The Absence from Work Survey (AWS) was an annual supplement to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) from 1977 to 1998. It asked employees about work absences of at least two weeks duration due to "illness, accident or pregnancy." Detailed information on duration and type of compensation received was collected for the most recent absence. Available at:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/aws.htm

2) The Maternity Leave Survey (1985)
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/mls.htm

But I also found some interesting data in the Daily release of Employment Insurance Coverage Survey (2004)- a table called Eligibility of mothers for maternity and parental benefits and duration of leave (http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050622/d050622d.htm).
This will not provide you with the demographics of these females, but it will help answer your second set of questions. Unfortunately the survey does not have a PUMF and is not part of the DLI collection, but perhaps the aggregate tables will be of use to you.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Same-sex couples in B.C. who have children in school

Question

A patron is wanting statistical information on the number of same-sex couples in B.C. who have children in school (elementary or secondary).

In the Census 2001 Topic-based Tabulations>Marital Status of Canadians, the table # 21 (see below*) allows you to select a view for common law status/with partner of same sex. But the age grouping categories are only for 15 and up. Is there a similar table for the under 15 age groupings?

Is there any way to find/determine:
- the number of same-sex couples in BC who have school age children?
- the number of same-sex couples in BC who have school age children attending school?

Conversely, is there any way to find/determine:
- the number of school age children in BC living with same sex couples
- the number of school age children in BC, attending school in BC, and living with same-sex couples.

*Table 21 - Legal Marital Status (6), Common-law Status (5), Age Groups (12A), Sex (3) and Household Living Arrangements (11) for Population 15 Years and Over, for Canada, Provinces and Territories, 2001 Census - 20% Sample Data - Cat. No. 97F0004XCB2001040 This product was updated on January 19, 2004.A patron is wanting statistical information on the number of same-sex couples in B.C. who have children in school (elementary or secondary).

Answers

1. Here is some information related to your request provided by the Census Help Desk at Statistics Canada:

I have checked a few sources and there is nothing that detailed for same sex common-law partners in standard products. The only additional information in a cross classification that is available is the following table.

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/standard/themes/RetrieveProductTable.cfm
?Temporal=2001&PID=59305&APATH=0&GID=355313&METH=1&PTYPE=55496&THEME=39&FOCUS=0&AID
=0&PLACENAME=0&PROVINCE=0&SEARCH=0&GC=0&GK=0&VID=0&FL=F&RL=0&FREE=0


Data can be produced as a custom tabulation for same sex couples for populations over 5000. If they are looking for the province of BC then that would meet the criteria.

Updated Products - Justice

Justice Beyond 20/20 Tables

Thank to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Division, we believe that the DLI Justice collection is now up to date as of August 2006.

Some of the data were updated and some of the tables were completely removed.

To help in the identification of terminated tables, replacement tables, etc. , the Justice "readme" and web page were updated as well.

We hope this will help in identifying the proper tables to help your users.

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/justice.htm
FTP: dli/justice/b2020/data

Thursday, September 21, 2006

1961 PUMF

Question

Would someone have created the system file for the 1961 PUMF?

Answer

We do not have access to the PUMF for 1961. I assume that was a reference to the basic cross-tabulations for the 1961 Census - that is all I can find on the FTP.

We'll make sure the FTP clarifies this fact by placing the documents in a BST folder or something of the sorts.

Travel Activities and Motivation Survey (tams)

Question

A patron is asking for the Travel Activities and Motivation Survey (tams). He has asked specifically for the data for a 2006 survey and specifically mentioned June 2006. The DLI FTP site has a /tams/1999/ folder with the date of 8/4/06. I have not found reference to a later survey. Is 1999 the most recent tams survey?

Answer

The most recent data that exists for this survey is 2005. They are going to the Policy Release Committee in October and hope to release in late November. No exact date as of yet.

Note the use of "hope to release" - remember that these dates are guidelines and may be pushed back (read: will probably be pushed back), so advise the user!

CSGVP or NSGVP 2004

Question

Will the 2004 Survey of Volunteering, Giving and Participation be made available to DLI?

Answer

It is not out yet, but the PUMF is scheduled to be released in November.

Release of GeoSuite 2001 Downloadable Database

GeoSuite 2001 Downloadable Database

The downloadable database entitled GeoSuite, 2001 Census (Geography Products: Geographic Data Products) has been released in The Daily.

The files have been used to replace the ones on the FTP site. The new version of the database is geosuite-2001-version3.zip .

Updated Products - PEA

Public Economic Accounts

This product provides a regional perspective on Canadian economic developments. It includes separate sets of statistical tables, organized in a manner similar to those in the Income and expenditure accounts, for each of the provinces and territories, catalogue no 13-001-PPB. The focus is on each region's gross domestic product, final domestic demand, personal disposable income and government sector accounts.

All data was updated except prv.exe - it will be available in November 2006.

FTP: /dli/pea
WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/pea.htm

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

SAS Question

Question

I'm taking the SPSS versions of some of the LMAS files and saving them to .sas7bdat format for a graduate student; however, when I run the export, an error message comes up

Warning # 9077
The cumulative length of the variable labels exceeds the limitations of the target file type. The excess labels will be omitted.

Is there any other way I can give her the data for use in SAS that won't have this problem? How serious is this?

Answer

One easy way to do it would be to create a .csv file from the SPSS - and I can send you a perl script that converts "most" of the SPSS syntax into SAS syntax.

Household Internet Use Survey 2002 codes

Question

In the HIUS2002 file, the variable QUARTILE has values ranging 1 - 9 BUT in the codebook there are only definitions for 1-4. Would anyone have a clear definition for 5-9 that I could pass on to our researcher?

Answers

1. I have just ran a frequency on the variable QUARTILE using "hius2002.sps" over this dataset "HIUS2002_Microdata.txt"

Here is my result:

Income Quartiles




















































Frequency



Percent



Valid Percent



Cumulative Percent



Valid



Quartile 1



8332



26.3



26.3



26.3



Quartile 2



8218



26.0



26.0



52.3



Quartile 3



7883



24.9



24.9



77.2



Quartile 4



7217



22.8



22.8



100.0



Total



31650



100.0



100.0




2. That's interesting - I get only values 1-4, with the following frequencies:

Income Quartiles
Percent N Value Label
26.3 8,332 1 Quartile 1
26.0 8,218 2 Quartile 2
24.9 7,883 3 Quartile 3
22.8 7,217 4 Quartile 4

Are you sure your researcher is using the right syntax file with the right data?

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

National Graduates Survey 2000

Question

Any word on when the NGS 2000 will be released?

Answer

Production of the 2000 FOG (Class of 1995) PUMF and the 2002 NGS (Class of 2000) PUMF are currently on hold. Due to the workload of the NGS/FOG project team coupled with a lack of dedicated resources for the PUMFS there is no timeline available for the release of the data files in question.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Maritimes University Graduates Surveys

Question

A researcher is interested in the surveys of maritime university graduates. We have seen publications based on these surveys at
Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission website:

http://www.mphec.ca/english/pol_b.html

Has anyone used these? Can anyone give me any ideas about obtaining the data?

Answer

I have never been asked for the raw data but I have always assumed that it is unavailable; EKOS did the most recent one, which is longitudinal.

Friday, September 8, 2006

Labour Force Survey Longitudinal Data

Question

A student wants to know if the LFS data is available in a way that would allow identification of the households across the survey months. It sounds to me as though she wants longitudinal LFS data; is this even possible (outside of using the SLID files in the RDCs)?

Answers

1. The variables on the PUMF does not allow for for this. If it could be done, and if it was releasable it would have to come from the master file.

2. Indeed the LFS files are not longitudinal and SLID would be the only option.

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Food Consumption Statistics

Question

We have a graduate student looking for Canadian food consumption data from the 1990s by region/province and listed by major food groups (e.g grains/cereals, vegetables, dairy etc).

To help with the query these are the questions he/she wants answered:
1. which province drank the most milk in the 1990's
2. which province spends the most money or has the best access to fruits and vegetables

Will be grateful if anyone help with ideas where we can find information to address the above query.

Answer

There were 3 Family food expenditure surveys conducted by STC during the 1990s: 1990, 1992, and 1996. The DLI ftp site has summary tables, in Excel format, from the 1990 survey, as well as the public use microdata files from all three surveys (in the 'foodex' subdirectory). Summary file ffe90tab2.xls does a breakdown of expenditure by province and major food group. It would be, I think, a fairly simple matter to duplicate that table from the other two surveys. The summary file for each year will, it appears, contains only expenditure by major food group; the detailed item files contain expenditure and quantity.

Friday, September 1, 2006

Updated Products - CCHS 3.1

Canadian Community Health Survey - Cycle 3.1 PUMF

The 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey: Public Use Microdata File, Cycle 3.1, is now available. Data were collected from over 130,000 respondents aged 12 or older, residing in households in all provinces and territories.

The file provides data for 101 health regions or combined health regions across Canada and includes information on a wide range of topics, including: physical activity, height and weight, smoking, exposure to second hand smoke, alcohol consumption, general health, chronic health conditions, injuries, and use of health care services. It also provides information on the socio-demographic, income and labour force characteristics of the population.

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/cchs.htm
FTP: /dli/cchs/cycle3-1

Distribution of Bride's/Groom's age at marriage, pre-1991

Question

We have the Statistics Canada publication Marriages, 1991 (cat. 84-212). Table 12A and 12B (page 16-17) are both labelled "Distribution of Bride's Age and Median Age at Marriage, Canada, Selected Years, 1921-1991", both on the page and in the table of contents. Given that they have different numbers, both can't be the brides' ages. I'm guessing that table 12B, with the older ages, is the grooms, but a faculty member has asked if I could confirm this. I've been unable to find another source giving the distributions. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Answer

There was indeed an error in the publication. Table 12 B should be labelled grooms.