Movers, Item Non-response Rates, and Neighborhood Characteristics in the Survey of Income and Program Participation

The goal of this study is to examine whether the likelihood of reporting material hardships is affected by the relative affluence of one’s neighbors. We analyze this issue using data from the 2008 panel of the restricted-use version of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), where we can identify the neighborhood (census tract) of residence. This project addresses Benefit 5 of Title 13 in two distinct ways (this benefit is stated as “Leading to new or improved methodology to collect, measure, or tabulate a Title 13, Chapter 5 survey, census, or estimate†). First, we use data from the Topical Modules on Adult Well-Being of the 2008 and 2014 SIPP and merge them with census tract information from the American Community Survey using the census tract identifier available in wave one of the SIPP control file. Since we do not have tract-level identifiers of those who have moved, we will examine who are the movers between wave 1 and waves 6 and 9 in the 2008 SIPP. We plan to not only examine individual-level characteristics associated with moving (which the Census Bureau has already done), but also neighborhood characteristics associated with such moves. We expect that these analyses will provide greater insight into the characteristics of relatively more difficult to track respondents who move between waves. Second, we will analyze item nonresponse to the Adult Well-Being Topical Module that includes household and neighborhood characteristics. This will enhance our understanding not only of the characteristics of households who are more likely to not respond to this question, but also whether there are contextual characteristics—above and beyond individual ones—that are associated with item nonresponse as well.