Missing Data - Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID)

Question

I am providing Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics PUMFs (all years available) to an economics prof here at Acadia, and 1995 is missing (/MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3889_SLID_EDTR/1995/data). Does anyone know where that could be? Or have it available to pass on to me?

Answer

Response 1:

I found this ‘readme’ file from DLI that I had saved about the SLID 1995. Not sure if there is anything more recent.

"Sat May 25 09:34:59 2002

I would like to try and sort out confusion about the Survey of Labour and
Income Dynamics (SLID Waves 1 & 2 referred to the first two years of the
survey 1993 and 1994. For these years they released cross-sectional files
and a two year longitudinal file. These we have on our FTP site.

Wave 3 refers to the third year of the survey 1995. The data collected
from this wave were released on June 17, 1998, however they did not release
any public file at that time. Although that had announced plans to release
files related to Wave 3 this never did occur. There are now no plans to
create a public file for Wave 3.

Cross- sectional files were produced for 1996 , 1997 and 1998 and these
are on our FTP site as well.

Since then it has been decided that there will be no more longitudinal files
released from SLID. Longitudinal data from this survey will now be
available only through remote job submission and at the RDCs.

I hope that this helps to clarify the SLID situation"

Response 2:
There is no PUMF available for SLID 1995. During this timeframe, the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) was still in a transitional phase. The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) continued to produce PUMFs up to and including 1997 income reference year. Please refer to the note below from the 1996 SLID PUMF file documentation. For more information, you can consult the Introduction section of the attached document.

For many years, the Survey of Consumer Finances had provided public-use microdata
files (PUMFs) to meet the needs of cross-sectional household income data users. SCF
PUMFs were released up to and including reference year 1997. As part of its
commitment to key data users, Statistics Canada has promised that SLID would continue
to produce public-use microdata files (PUMFs) to meet the requirements of the SCF
PUMF users. For the purposes of standard tables, Statistics Canada has decided to make
the transition from SCF to SLID between 1995 and 1996. Therefore, SLID cross-sectional
PUMFs are being made available for reference years 1996 and 1997 (years in
common with SCF). Beginning with reference year 1998, a SLID PUMF will be released
on an annual basis.

Canadian / American survey equivalents

Question

I have been asked what the closest equivalent Statistics Canada survey would be compared to the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The user used to use Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), but eventually stopped as it was available only in RDCs. (I think SLID is the closest equivalent.)

Answer

A few other data sources to consider would be the LAD (Longitudinal Administrative Databank) and LISA (Longitudinal and International Study of Adults). As well, you could look into the CIS (Canadian Income Survey) which is the official survey that followed SLID, however it is not longitudinal, but cross-sectional.

Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics 2012

Question

Is the next SLID PUMF expected to be out in June 2016?

Answer

We’ve located the following announcement regarding the 2011 SLID:

This is the last release from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics and contains cross-sectional estimates only. Effective with the 2012 reference year, cross-sectional income esitmates will be available from the Canadian Income Survey (record number 5200).Longitudinal estimates are available up to and including 2010.For detailed information related to previous SLID releases, please click on the 'Other reference periods' sidebar.

I’ve contacted the subject matter area for the Canadian Income Survey and have received the following response:

“Our plans as of now are to try and release the CIS PUMFs in the Fall of 2016. At that time we are hoping to release 2012 and 2013. And hopefully 2014 shortly after.”

1995 SLID PUMF

Question

Why is there no 1995 SLID PUMF? Does it have to do survey changes (as I understand this to have happened) in 1998? Is there any data for 1995 (e.g., in an RDC), or does my researcher have only the 93-94 file and then the 1996 file to work with?

Answer

SLID was a pilot test to SCF for the period of 1993 to 1997, SLID became official in 1998; public files were available from SCF until 1997. The SLID panel had only one panel from 1993 to 1995; the SLID panels doubled in 1996, so 1996 was a good starting point for producing a public SLID file.

Job-related Outcomes

Question

I have a graduate student looking for information on job-related outcomes - including things such as job satisfaction, job engagement, and job performance for Canada with no time period specifications. Any suggestions?

Answer

Perhaps of interest

Canadian Community Health Survey, mental health and well-being
Data from the 2002 Canadian Community Health Survey, which focused on mental health and well-being, show that just over 6% of workers were "not too satisfied," and 2% were "not at all satisfied."
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/061017/dq061017a-eng.htm

Workplace and Employee Survey
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/data-donnees/ftp/wes-emte-eng.htm

Articles of Interest

Workplace and Employee Survey Compendium: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/71-585-x/71-585-x2008001-eng.htm

This issue, the third and final in the Workplace and Employee Survey Compendium series, is organized in four sections covering labour market dynamics, market environments, workplace performance, and compensation practices

Perspectives on Labour and Income - December 2007 - Work stress and job performance
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/2007112/article/10466-eng.htm

Unhappy on the job
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2005004/article/9496-eng.pdf

Absence of Visible Minority Variable in SLID

Question

A researcher here would like to know if the visible minority variable, available in the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) master file, could be made available in the PUMF. If the main issue is sample size, could it at least be available at the national level?

Answer

The division that produces this PUMF indicated that the disclosure risk of including a visible minority variable on the PUMF was deemed high and that it therefore isn't available in this PUMF. They recommended that the researcher consider using the Research Data Centres (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/rdc-cdr/index-eng.htm) if he/she wishes to work with a SLID visible minority variable.

I hope that this information is helpful.

Number of Engineers & Geoscientists Working in Businesses with Less Than 5 Employees in Alberta

Question

I am looking for the number of engineers and geoscientists working in businesses with less than 5 employees in Alberta (most recent number available). If you have any suggestions, I would appreciate the help.

Thank-you.

Answer

This information unfortunately doesn't seem to be readily available in a recent StatCan standard aggregated data product.

Occupation related data for Alberta are available from surveys such as the Census for example but these wouldn't include information on business size. Other surveys and programs (Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours - SEPH for example) could provide employment information by industry (NAICS) and enterprise size but unfortunately wouldn't include occupation related variables.

Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) seems to have both occupation related variables and employer related variables (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75f0026x/2010000/theme-eng.htm) but the smallest range for number of employees seems to be "less than 20" employees so I don't expect that this would meet your client's needs. I am also not sure that this survey would be appropriate to produce the estimates you need but would be happy to ask our SLID contacts to advise if you are interested in SLID. If you also wish to look into SLID, SLID public use microdata files are available through the DLI and analytical files through the RDCs. SLID data are also be available as a custom product on a cost recovery basis.

I hope that this information is helpful.

Updated Products - SLID 2008

Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) 2008 - Public Use Microdata File (PUMF)

The Public Use Microdata File (PUMF) for the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) 2008 is now available on the DLI FTP and website.

"The cross-sectional public-use microdata file for the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) is a collection of income, labour and family variables on persons in Canada and their families. This file includes many safeguards to prevent the identification of any one person.
Although often referred to as a single file, the SLID public-use microdata file is actually four separate files: key, person, economic family and census family.

The person file contains identifier data, which allows a researcher to group persons into households, economic families and census families, as well as link each of these files together." (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/bsolc/olc-cel/olc-cel?catno=75M0010XCB&lang=eng)

WEB: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/dli-ild/data-donnees/ftp/slid-edtr/slid-edtr2008-eng.htm
FTP: /DissFTP/dli/DLI Coll._Other prod/Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics - slid/2008

Thank you.

2006 SLID - SAS and SPSS syntax files

Question
Two researchers here at York, using the pumfs from the 2006 SLID, have
reported problems with the syntax files in SPSS and SAS.   Both are
receiving error messages for missing value specifications.  I am not
very familiar with these applications and don't know how to help.  Any
suggestions would be very welcome.

Answer

The SLID 2006 SPSS files have been updated.  I will be sending out an
announcement regarding these and other updated SLID files soon.

2006 SLID - SAS and SPSS Syntax Files

Question
Two researchers here at York, using the pumfs from the 2006 SLID, have reported problems
with the syntax files in SPSS and SAS.   Both are receiving error messages for missing
value specifications.  I am not very familiar with these applications and don't know how
to help.  Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Answer

The SPSS syntax files for the 2006 SLID pumfs were quite bad.

1) integer variables were uniformly coded as alphabetic

2) there was no specification of decimals, required by several variables

3) most of the missing data specifications that were given were in error
(ie 4-digit missing variable specs for 2-digit variables (eg '9696 thru
9999' instead of '96 thru 99'), and 2-digit variable specs for 1-digit
variables (eg '66 thru 99' instead of '6 thru 9'))

4) the bulk of the variables that needed missing data specifications had
none.

I haven't looked at the SAS syntax, but assume it suffers from the same
malaises.

Partly revised syntax files are linked from:
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/inventory/3000/3814.htm#doc

SLID 2006

Question

I have a student wondering when the Survey of Labour and Income
Dynamics (SLID) for 2006 will be released. I checked the Products
Release page and we were supposed to get it in Dec 2008, but it is not
on the DLI FTP site.

Answer
The 2006 PUMF was released on January 13th, 2009, and I had asked the
division to provide us with a copy. I still haven't received it so I will
follow-up with them today and get back to you.

***

The division just confirmed that they will be sending me the 2006 SLID PUMF
this week. I will announce it on the list once it is available on our web
and FTP sites.

Survey of labour and income dynamics and Aboriginal Peoples or ethnicity

Question
The Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics appears to collect information on ethnicity and Aboriginal Peoples, but this information does not seem to be in the PUMF. Could someone confirm if this is a confidentiality issue, and if so, would this aspect of SLID be available in the RDCs? Thanks in advance for any information on this matter.

Answer

Here is the response from Income Division

We have a few variables on ethnicity and Aboriginal peoples available from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics. Due to confidentiality reasons, these variables are not available in the PUMFs. They are available in the SLID data master file in the Statistics Canada Research Data Centers. Your client can consult the SLID Data Dictionary (75F0026-XWE) to obtain more information on these variables (for example, abortg15 and etho1c15). Please note that the sample size is small for these variables so there is limited data available for cross-tabulations.

SLID 2006 Release date

Question

Unless I'm mistaken and, of course that is always a strong possibility, I don't see SLID 2006 available through DLI yet. Is it coming soon?

Answer

The 2006 SLID PUMF should be available in December 2008:

http://dissemination.statcan.ca/english/Dli/pumfdates.htm

Updated Products - Income Trends in Canada (ITC) 1980-2005

Income Trends in Canada is an extensive collection of income statistics, covering topics such as income distribution, income tax, government transfers, and low income. The data are drawn from two household surveys: the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) and the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Data since 1996 are taken from SLID, while historical data prior to 1996 are drawn from the SCF.

Income Trends in Canada provides a complete list of the tables and directions for getting started. It also contains background information on the survey, its content and methodology, and other SLID data products and services.

In addition to provincial detail, many of the tables present estimates for the 15 largest Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs), as follows: Halifax, Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa-Gatineau, Toronto, St.-Catharines-Niagara, Hamilton, Kitchener, London, Windsor, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria. Due to sample size limitations and sampling variability, estimates for urban areas are less reliable and are subject to larger errors than provincial and national estimates. Given the variability of the annual estimates, users are cautioned against drawing conclusions from single year-to-year comparisons alone.

Income Trends in Canada uses the Beyond 20/20 Browser software for accessing and manipulating tables.

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/itc.htm
FTP: /ftp/dli/itc/1980-2005

SLID 2003

Question

With regard to the SLIDs 2003 persons file, what does code 10 mean for the variable 'reawpt1' (reason for part-time work)? According to the variable description, no such value should exist, but there are in fact quite a few observations with that value.

Answer

The code is defined in the data dictionary :
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75F0026XIE/75F0026XIE2005001.htm

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75F0026XIE/2005001/t05430.htm#reawpt1

SLID 2003 Documentation

Users of the latest version of SLID 2003 should be aware that there is a conflicting information in the documentation.

Eg page 2 of the record layout (slid2003cbk.pdf) claims variable rcvcmp28 is in column 110 of the person file, while page 29 of the same document claims it is in column 111.

At least reading it from 110 gives the appropriate frequencies. But all column locations for the person file, beyond column 110 appear to be correct in one place, and incorrect in another place.

SLID 2000 Immigrant Variable

Question

In the 2000 Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics there is a variable "immst15" (immigrant flag). Marginals are as follows:

1 yes 3,641
2 no 11,608
7 don't know 42,192

We're assuming that the "don't know" category should actually be "not applicable" and also that it refers to persons born in Canada. Is that a valid assumption?

Answer

Immigration status is available only for persons living in urban size of 500,000 and higher all other individuals are set to don't know for confidentiality reasons.

Follow up

Is there not some way that another code could be used that could be specifically for "confidentiality protection"? A code of "don't know" should be reserved for persons who indicate that as their response. This undermines confidence in coding.

Income deciles

Question

A faculty member here wants data from both SLID and SHS by income decile (not quintile, as has already been provided for us in SHS 2003). I know that I can use SPSS to generate the deciles, using

FREQUENCIES
VARIABLES=variable
/NTILES= 10
/ORDER= ANALYSIS.

and then, by using these figures to derive another variable, do crosstabs by income decile. What I'm not sure about is whether I
should calculate the deciles to create the derived variable before or after applying the weight variable. Could someone out
there give me some advice?

Answer

If you want the decile variable to indicate membership in the weighted sample, keep the weight variable on when calculating the deciles using the Frequencies command. To satisfy your curiosity, run the Frequencies command with the weight variable on and then off and compare the differences between the deciles of these two runs. You should see differences between the values of the deciles as a result of the sampling design.

When recoding income into deciles, the weight variable will not be invoked and can be either on or off.

SLID 2001 and 2002 SPSS syntax files

Question

I was wondering if anybody has put together the compete SPSS syntax files to the 2001 and 2002 SLID surveys, and would be willing to share? The DLI site presently offers the parts, but not the complete file.

If not, perhaps I could get some advice on the parts of the syntax available for these surveys. I have pasted together the parts of the 2002 SLID persons survey, and edited as necessary, but SPSS does not seem to like the variables list. It has several numbers that end in decimals, or have a number with a decimal in brackets after the column numbers. For example, "icswt26 23 - 32.4 (10.4) " . If I strip out the decimals and numbers in brackets, SPSS will pull in the data, and several frequencies I have run match the documentation. However, I am still a little concerned that the decimal numbers must have been there for a reason, and thought I should check before giving the student access to this and other recent SLID files.

Answer

No need to doubt your SPSS skills. The decimal point in the column range, i.e., 23-32, is incorrect SPSS syntax. I suspect that the SPSS code was generated from SAS code, where the variable "icswt26" is declared correctly for SAS as: icswt26 10.4 .

Synthetic files for SLID

Currently: The new SLID-RET (Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics - Data Retrieval System) files were just loaded on the FTP at the following location ://ftp/dli/slid/SLIDRET-Ver-2_3. The website will be updated shortly.