Overview

The August 2000 Internet and Computer Use Supplement was conducted as a supplement to that month's Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a monthly labor force survey conducted in approximately 48,000 interviewed households across the country. Attachment 9 is a facsimile of the document used by the CPS with August 2000 Internet and Computer Use Supplement questions. See "Overview-Current Population Survey" (Attachment _) for a description of the CPS; the following describes the August 2000 Internet and Computer Use questions asked in the full CPS sample of persons 3 years old and over.

The August 2000 Internet and Computer Use Supplement contained questions about the household in general (such as "Is there a computer or laptop in the household?") and about those individual household members who use the Internet. The respondent was at least 15 years old, knowledgeable about the Internet or computers, and gave proxy responses for other members of the household. Interviews were conducted during the period of August 13-19, 2000. Interviewers were provided with a two-hour home study for completing the basic CPS labor force exercises, supplement exercises, and a practice interview concerning the supplement.

The data processing involved a consistency edit and an allocation of missing supplement data. Items with missing values were assigned values, if appropriate. When a response is not obtained for a particular data item, or an inconsistency in reported items is detected, an "imputed" response is entered in the field. Imputation is performed using a "hot deck" method, whereby a response from another sample person with similar demographic and economic characteristics is used for the nonresponse. The imputation procedure is performed one item at a time.

The values and universes for each variable are defined in the supplement record layout (Attachment _).

The August 2000 Internet and Computer Use File consists of two parts: the CPS labor force data and the supplement data.

A. The CPS Labor Force Data

The August 2000 CPS file contains 134,986 records. The first 856 characters contain the labor force data for each record. Attachment _ contains the CPS Basic Items Record Layout, which includes the variable name, character size, location on the record, universe, and the possible values of each basic CPS variable included on the file.

The variable PRPERTYP (located in positions 161-162 on the CPS Basic Items Record Layout) determines the type of person as follows:

PRPERTYP

1 = Child household member (0-14 years old)

2 = Adult civilian household member (15+ years old)

3 = Adult Armed Forces household member (15+ years old)

The variable HRINTSTA (located in positions 57-58 on the CPS Basic Items Record Layout) determines the interview status of the household.

HRINTSTA

1 = Interview

2 = Type A Noninterview (These records represent households that were eligible for the June 1998 CPS interview but were not interviewed because no one was home, household members were temporarily absent, etc.)

3 = Type B Noninterview (These records represent sample addresses determined to be ineligible for the CPS by virtue of being vacant, demolished, nonresidential, etc.)

4 = Type C Noninterview (See explanation for Type B above)

By combining the values of PRPERTYP (1-3) and HRINTSTA (2-4), the number of records can be determined.

The values of PRPERTYP are:

1 = Child 26,449

2 = Adult Civilian, 15+ 94,984

3 = Adult, Armed Forces 312

The values of HRINTSTA are:

1 = Interview 47,673

2 = Type A Noninterview 3,612

3 = Type B Noninterview 9,191

4 = Type C Noninterview 438

B. August 2000 Internet and Computer Use Supplement Data

CPS Computer Ownership Supplement - 2000 Public Use File Page

CPS Main Page