Census of population and housing [United States], 1970 public use sample

ICPSR has acquired a collection of data derived from files originally distributed by the Census Bureau in its series of Public Use Samples from the 1970 Census of Population and Housing (see ICPSR 0018). This collection represents a sample of the records contained in the Bureau's one-in-one-hundred county group sample 5% files for SMSAs. A sample was drawn of approximately 1,500 ''family households'' (defined as a household occupied by at least one family) for each of 42 selected Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs). All relevant household and person records for the families in the households selected were then combined to form a single fixed-field logical record for each family in the sample. The data file thus constructed contains approximately 50,000 families from 42 SMSAs. The advantages of this file for certain research purposes requiring 1970 Public Use Sample data are twofold: the number of data records is more manageable than in the original files produced by the Census Bureau (approximately 30 magnetic tapes are required for storage of the original data files from which this collection was derived), and this data file contains only one fixed-formatted record per family rather than the variable number of household and person records per family that characterizes the original hierarchically-structured Census Bureau files. The present collection was prepared by Kimball P. Marshall, Center for Policy Studies and Program Evaluation, Sangamon State University.