Adults with Living Grandparents

Question

I have a grad student who is looking for Canadian stats on adults who have living grandparents. The only place I have found that deals with this is cycle 5 of the General Social Survey. Has anyone run across this kind of statistic elsewhere?

Answer

The National Population Health Survey has the following variables:

nphs94h SUP_Q7B PAST YEAR CONTACT WITH : GRANDPARENTS
nphs9697h SSC6_7B FREQUENCY OF CONTACT WITH GRANDPARENTS

I found these using the keyword "grandparent* " in the question-text index at URL:
http://db.library.queensu.ca/allvars/

GSS 17 has a variable, multigen that identifies families with three or more generations living in the household.

Each of these files has a multi-generation family variable:
General Social Survey of Canada, 1995 - Cycle 10: Family. Main File
General Social Survey of Canada, 1998 - Cycle 12: Time use main file
General Social Survey of Canada, 1999 - Cycle 13: Victimization main file
General Social Survey of Canada, 2000 - Cycle 14: Access to and use of Information Communication Technology
General Social Survey of Canada, 2001 - Cycle 15: Family History (Main File)
Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, 1992/1993: person file
Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, 1992-1994: longitudinal person file

These ones have grandpar*:
National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, Cycle 1. 1994/1995: Primary file - variable AA1CQ08G
National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, Cycle 3 (1998-1999): Self-adminstered questionnaire file - variable CFFCQ08G
Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, 1992/1993: person file

Census of Manufacturers

Question

I've been looking around for some historical information about the "Census of Manufacturers".

[1] Whatever happened to the "Census of Manufacturers"? I looked in the "Historical Statistics of Canada" and have read "Section R: Manufactures" which gives me very detailed information up to the '70's, of course.

However, does anyone know if it is still being conducted? IF NOT, what was the last year it was done under that name?

[2] Did the "Annual Survey of Manufacturers" replace the "Census of Manufacturers" in 1983? (1983 is the first year of data available to us through the DLI file, "Annual Survey of Manufactures, 1983 * 1995".)

[3] Any chance that the DLI community can get data more recent than 1995 for the "Annual Survey of Manufacturers"?

If we can get it via another data source, please let me know. At the moment, I can only think of CANSIM and the publications 31-001, "Monthly Survey of Manufacturing"; 31-203, "Manufacturing Industries of Canada"; and the titles for specifically named manufacturing industries.

Answer

There's a description of the Annual survey of manufactures at:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/sdds/2103.htm

It has links to the questionnaires, a note on comparability of data, etc., but no list of products that derive their data from it.

However, armed with the information that it is SDDS number 2103, you can go in to E-stat's version of CANSIM and search by survey number (ie. '2103') and find out which matrices are produced from it. A search of the Daily will tell you any other products produced from it since about 1996.

Microdata on debit card use

Question

We have a user looking for data on debit card (Interac) use in Canada. So far, I have searched the variable-level databases at UWO, Sherlock, and Queens, as well as the TST, with no luck. I have also searched the Roper database, but the content abstracts are so brief that I suspect they would miss something like this.

Does anyone have any other suggestions, things I have missed?

Answer

I have found the very brief mention of 'automated banking machines' in GSS 9.

Also, General Social Survey 14: Access to and Use of Information Communication Technology - 2000
A13 - In past 12 months how often use ATM
Value Label
1 At least a week
2 At least a month
3 Less than a month
4 Never
9 Not stated

No controlled vocabulary, so you've really got to try every variation/permutation!

Request for Components of Growth

Question

I've had a request from a faculty member for the following publication. It appears to be one that all would have to order, but I
wanted to be sure that was the case. Could one of you please clarify that for me? It would be nice, of course, if it were available through DLI. Here's the info from the online catalogue:

Product: Components of growth, Canada, provinces and territories, 1993-2016
Catalogue no.: 91C0019

Answer

Sorry to say no again but this product is a custom table. You will have to order it.

http://www.statcan.ca:8096/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=91C0019

A "C" in the catalogue number is Statscan's code for custom.

PALS 2001

Question

A student who wants to use the PALS 2001 survey has asked me where or if there is a designation for province of residence. She could not find a variable relating to it. I have looked through the
questionnaire, where I saw that province information was collected at the beginning and the end of it. Using our access to IDLS, however, I do not see either a direct or derived variable relating to province. Have we overlooked something?

Looking at the user's guide, there is no province variable listed in the data dictionary.

Section 6.5, which talks about non-disclosure, mentions that "the level of detail of the pumf is not as fine as that of the master file ... Actions were also taken to make the microdata file more secure ... These actions concern the geography included in the file, ..." Is this the first PUMF where geography is completely suppressed?

Answer

It was decided that the richness of this survey was within the variables rather than the geography. A conscious decision was made to put as much detail as possible in the file
therefore sacrificing geography.

Unfortunately variable details that were released in previous versions of surveys do not always get approved for release with the current version. There could be a number of reasons for this including sample size, response rate, complexity and level of detail of questions asked etc. Most of all there are increased confidentiality concerns in all of our surveys. In fact I am of the opinion that previous surveys would not contain the same level of detail now if they were brought before the Microdata Release Committee.

Each time a survey manager makes changes to a public use file and brings it before the Release Committee requires the expenditure of a lot of time and resources. At this point in time it would be beyond the means of the budget to try and add even one additional variable to a released file.
Even one variable requires the manager to go through the entire release process - which could cost close to $50,000 and take months to do. Once a file is released, unless it is to fix an errors in the data, the actual data file is rarely altered.

Food Insecurity Supplement / Master and share files

Question

A while ago, it was posted that the Food Insecurity supplement is not available in PUMF format (master & share only). Could you tell me what (master & share only) means?

I have a student who would like the PUMF - can I assume that it will never be available as a PUMF? Do you know if there have been any reports, with aggregate stats, produced from this supplement?

Answer

I just ran across, in Canada food stats (it uses Food Insecurity supplement data) -
Food Insecurity (in: Health reports (82-003-XIE), vol 12(4), August 2001) linked from:
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/datalib/codebooks/dsp/23f0001/23f0001_04j.htm

As for the definitions related to master and share:

The master file is the final internal file containing all of the non-suppressed confidential data. It is from this file that the public use file is created. This is also the file used by divisions to do custom tabulations. It is the master file of some surveys that will go to the RDCs.

The share file is a subset of the master file. For some surveys we ask respondents if we can share their answers with other government departments - we have to name the other departments. Those that agree are kept on the share file and those that say no have there record removed. So the share file can contain the same level of detail as the file master file but less records. We do this whenever a government department that is sponsoring a survey has need of more detailed data than will be contained in the public use file. With the advent of RDCs and even a special RDC in Ottawa for federal departments the creation of a share file is becoming less frequent.

Population projections publication

Question

We have a faculty member who has used "Projections of visible minority population groups, Canada, provinces and regions, 1991-2016" (Stats Can Pub no.: 91-541-XPE) which we have in our library. However, it did not have exactly what he needed regarding languages. I found in the Online Catalogue a publication entitled: "Detailed tables of projections of households and families for Canada, provinces and territories, 1994-2016" (Catalogue no.: 91C0024). It had the description: Categories: Ethnic origin, Migration, Languages, Religion, Population characteristics, Vital statistics, Citizenship, Census of population, Age groups, Aging population. With those descriptive categories we thought that it might provide what he needs. Would it be available via the DLI?

Answer

Unfortunately, this cannot be made available to the DLI as it is not a product but a service. Any STC catalogue number with a "C" as the third character indicates a cost recovery service and not a stand alone product. The output will depend on what each clients requests.

As indicated on the main page for this catalogue number: Pricing varies according to client specifications.

Professors giving students DLI data for course assignments

Question

If a professor has DLI data, can he or she give it to his/her students directly? Assuming that the students are using it for a class project.

Answer

Yes, the use for class project is completely legitimate.

Resource Royalties for Nunavut

Question

A student here wants to know what resource royalties were paid by the Nunavut territorial government to the federal government. From CANSIM, I can get the total royalties collected by the federal government, but I can't seem to find it broken down by payee (as it were). Not being sure of the terminology, I also tried looking for taxes or transfers, but didn't get anything that seemed to fit.

Does anyone out there have any ideas?

Answer

Provincial & Territorial governments don't pay royalties to the federal government. On the contrary, the federal government has jurisdiction on some non-renewable resource royalties and makes transfers to the provinces. (for example, offshore revenues in NFLD). Otherwise, the provinces look after their own royalty collection, (for example in Alberta, oil and gas royalties) and the federal government collects on its own behalf.

A good source could be Table 385-0002 for Natural resource royalties collected by the federal government for the breakdown between oil & gas, mineral, other, etc. We don't collect detail below this aggregate level, however.

Elevation of CTs or DAs

Question

Is there any way to find out the average elevation (above sea level) of a census tract or dissemination area. I have a student who is trying to correlate socioeconomic status (from census
data) with elevation for our city. The thesis is that the higher up one lives in the physical sense, the higher their socioeconomic status. I think each census tract/dissemination area has a centroid which would have lat/long coordinates, but I don't think I have ever seen elevation data attached to this point. Any advice or help would be very much appreciated.

Answer

Statistics Canada does not have that information. Best we can provide is elevation of major lakes.
http://dissemination.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/phys05.htm

NRCan is normally the place to go.

I also tried the infamous google search. I found a neat product called zipcode world that has that
information by postal code. You can demo the product but I'm not sure for how long. Here is what it looks like:
http://www.zipcodeworld.com/lookup.asp

Construction Workers by Trade

Question

Where would I look to find out the number of worker by specific construction trade by province? As well is there information as to how many are union vs. non-union? I can find construction workers in general, but not by specific trade, so far.

Answer

The LFS has everything you're looking for except a lot of detail for construction trades. You might have to go the custom table route because your other choice which would be the census pumf does not have union data.

Enumeration Areas and Dissemination Areas

Question

Is an EA typically larger than a DA, or smaller - or is it impossible to generalize? I'm trying to get a sense of the comparative size of these two units. (From browsing the concordance between EAs and DAs, I get a sense that quite a few DAs fit into or overlap an EA, but I'd rather be sure)

Answer

DAs were brought in to replace EAs, so some are the same size, some are bigger, and some are smaller. Here is the explanation about them.

The dissemination area (DA) is a new standard geographic area. It replaces the enumeration area (EA) as a basic unit for dissemination. Dissemination areas are aggregates of one or more blocks. DAs respect several delineation criteria designed to maximize their usefulness for data analyses.

1. DA boundaries respect the boundaries of census subdivisions and census tracts. DAs therefore remain stable over time, to the extent that census subdivisions and census tracts do.

2. DAs are uniform in terms of population size, which is targeted from 400 to 700 persons to avoid data suppression. DAs with lower population counts (including zero population) may result in order to respect the boundaries of census subdivisions and census tracts. DAs with higher population counts may also result.

3. DA boundaries follow roads. DA boundaries may follow other features (such as railways, water features, power transmission lines), where these features form part of the boundaries of census subdivisions or census tracts.

4. A DA within a DA is formed when the population of apartment or townhouse complexes meets or exceeds 300 persons.

5. DAs are compact in shape, to the extent possible while respecting the above criteria.

6. Operational requirements limit to 99 the number of blocks that can be included in a DA. In order to meet the operational constraint of releasing population and dwelling counts in the spring following the census year, the population counts used to delineate DAs are taken from the previous census. To delineate DAs for 2001, sufficiently accurate block population counts based on 1996 Census data were only possible where block-face geocoding existed for the 1996 Census. Therefore, the 2001 DAs were delineated according to the above criteria only in CMA/CA areas where 1996 block-face geocoding existed. Everywhere else, the 2001 DAs are the same as the 2001 EAs used for data collection.