Assigning Race and Ethnicity to Birth Records Using a CPS-Based Kid-Link Method

Eric B. Jensen , U.S. Census Bureau
Kasey Eickmeyer, Bowling Green State University

Birth certificates in the United States include the race and Hispanic origin of the mother and father, but not the child. This creates challenges for demographic estimation and research. In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau developed the Kid-Link method to assign race and Hispanic origin to birth records. Census data for biological children are linked with data from their potential parents to create distributions of race and ethnicity. The distributions are combined with information on the birth certificates to assign race and Hispanic origin to aggregated birth records. The method assumes that the spouse and unmarried partner of the householder are the biological parent of the child. Further, it excludes subfamilies where neither parent is the householder. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we test the assumptions about biological parentage. We also incorporate family types that do not include the householder when assigning race and ethnicity to birth records.

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 Presented in Session 9. Marriage, Family, Households, & Unions; Gender, Race, & Ethnicity