DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37303.v1
title: Current Population Survey, September 2017: Volunteering and Civic Life Supplement
title: CPS, September 2017
title: Version 1

description: This data collection is comprised of responses from two sets of survey questionnaires, the basic Current Population Survey (CPS) and a survey on the topic of volunteer service, which was administered as a supplement to the September CPS questionnaire. The Corporation for National and Community Service jointly sponsored the supplemental questions for September. 
The CPS, administered monthly, is a labor force survey providing current estimates of the economic status and activities of the population of the United States. Specifically, the CPS provides estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics, and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment. Data from the CPS are provided for the week prior to the survey.
All persons eligible for the labor force items of the basic CPS were also eligible for the volunteer supplement. Altogether, 147,268 interviews were conducted during the period of September 10-19, 2017. Proxy responses were allowed if attempts for a self-response were unsuccessful. The supplement contained questions about the household member's participation in volunteer service from September 1, 2016, to the date of the interview. Household members were queried about the frequency of volunteer activity, the kinds of organizations they volunteered with, the types of activities they chose, whether any volunteering was done in a foreign country, and involvement in their community.
Demographic variables include age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, veteran status, educational attainment, occupation, and income.
description: The purpose of the 2017 Volunteer Supplement was to examine Americans' volunteer activities in the United States.
description: The 2017 Volunteer Supplement was conducted as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), an ongoing data collection effort of the United States Census Bureau. The survey was administered to household members aged 16 years and older in the households that were in the exit round of the CPS sample rotation. Computer-assisted personal interviews and computer-assisted telephone interviews were conducted during the period of September 10-19, 2017. Proxy respondents were allowed if attempts for self-responses were unsuccessful. Altogether, 147,268 respondents were interviewed for the 2017 Volunteer Supplement.
description: The CPS variables provide labor force data containing current estimates of the economic status and activities of this population which includes estimates of total employment (both farm and nonfarm), nonfarm self-employed persons, domestics, and unpaid helpers in nonfarm family enterprises, wage and salaried employees, and estimates of total unemployment. The CPS variables also cover respondents' demographic information: age, sex, race, marital status, educational attainment, family relationship, occupation, and industry. The Volunteer Supplement variables provide household member's participation in volunteer service from September 1, 2016 to the date of the interview. Respondents were asked about the frequency of their volunteer activity, the kinds of organizations they volunteered with, and the types of activities they chose. Among those individuals who did not volunteer, the questions identified what barriers they experienced in volunteering, or what would encourage them to volunteer.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
					disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
					statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
					these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
					Created variable labels and/or value labels.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets:
					
						DS1: Current Population Survey, September 2017: Volunteering and Civic Life Supplement
description: Current Population Survey Volunteer Supplement Series
description: computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI)
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI)
description: The basic CPS universe consists of all persons aged 15 years and older in the civilian noninstitutional population of the United States living in households. The September 2017 supplement universe consists of the full CPS sample of all households, for civilian persons age 16 and over.
						Smallest Geographic Unit: Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA)
description: Sample households are selected by a multistage stratified statistical sampling scheme. A multistage probability sample was selected to represent the universe of approximately 56,000 households. The current CPS sample was selected based on 2000 census information. The first stage of the 2000 sample design created 2,025 geographic areas called primary sampling units (PSUs) in the entire United States. These PSUs were grouped into strata within each state. Some of these PSUs formed strata by themselves and were in sample with certainty, which is referred to as self-representing. Of the remaining nonself-representing PSUs, one PSU was selected from each stratum with the probability of selection proportional to the population of the PSU. A total of 824 PSUs were selected for sampling. The second stage of the sample design selected housing units within these PSUs.
Approximately 72,000 housing units are assigned for interview each month, of which about 60,000 are occupied and thus eligible for interview. The remainder are units found to be destroyed, vacant, converted to nonresidential use, containing persons whose usual place of residence is elsewhere, or ineligible for other reasons. Of the 60,000 occupied housing units, approximately 7 percent are not interviewed in a given month due to temporary absence (vacation, etc.), the residents are not found at home after repeated attempts, inability of persons contacted to respond, unavailability for other reasons, and refusals to cooperate. The interviewed households contain approximately 108,000 persons 15 years old and over, approximately 27,000 children 0-14 years old, and about 450 Armed Forces members living with civilians either on or off base within these households.