Comparing Measures: Child care costs, CPS, and SIPP

As part of the Census Bureau's mission to develop a supplemental poverty measure, a colleague and I recently completed a working paper comparing child care costs between the 2010 Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) and the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Child Care topical module.

The CPS ASEC is one of the main surveys used by the Census Bureau (and the bench mark for much of the federal government) to measure poverty. Child care expenses are an important part of the supplemental poverty measure and it is important that accurate data is collected. New questions regarding child care costs were added to the 2010 CPS ASEC. Our paper compare those results with SIPP (the best source of child care related expenses).

We found that costs estimates collected by CPS ASEC were similar to SIPP, with a few limitations.

The full paper can be found here.

Women are teachable

Came across an interesting blog post about women and work issues during World War II. During this time period there were a number of assumptions made about female workers and many companies produced booklets for employers to help them deal with "women issues". My favorite recommendation to employers is to "Avoid horseplay or 'kidding', she may reset it." Check out the full post here.

How times have changed! While women still face a number of obstacles in the workplace, women have made tremendous advances in education which should translate into advances in the workplace. According to the 2007 Current Population Survey, about 33 percent of young women 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s degree or more education, compared with 26 percent of their male counterparts. Also more women are enrolled in college. More than half of undergraduates (56 percent) – as well as 59 percent of graduate students – were women.