Visit GESIS homepage
MISSY: Homepage aufrufen
Metadata for Official Statistics

Typologies and Bandsatzerweiterungen

Simon Börlin

The German Microcensus (MC) is the official household survey for information on the population and the labour market. It is designed as a single-stage cluster sample with a sampling rate of one percent. All households and persons living in the selected clusters are surveyed as observation units. Therefore, information on all secondary survey units is available. In addition to the persons of a household or collective dwelling, these are the units household, form of life and family. In order to analyse these different levels, some classifications, so-called "Bandsatzergänzungen", are subsequently generated by the Federal Statistical Office on the basis of the directly collected questions. In order to simplify the data preparation, the Scientific Use File (SUF) of the MC from 2015 onwards no longer includes such classifications in the data provided. These classifications can be relevant for many research questions. However, they mainly include information that can be generated from other variables contained in the data. That is why this introduction uses the data from MC SUF 2014 to describe how the relevant classifications can be generated independently on the basis of existing variables.

  • Börlin, Simon (2019): Einführung in die eigenständige Erstellung von Typisierungen am Beispiel des Mikrozensus Scientific Use Files 2014. GESIS Papers 20202/01). [.pdf]

Download of the Syntax

Andrea Lengerer & Jeanette Bohr & Andrea Janßen

  • Lengerer, Andrea; Bohr, Jeanette; Janßen, Andrea (2005): Haushalte, Familien und Lebensformen im Mikrozensus - Konzepte und Typisierungen. ZUMA-Arbeitsbericht 5/2005. [.pdf]

see also:

  • Lengerer, Andrea; Janßen, Andrea; Bohr, Jeanette (2007): Familiensoziologische Analysepotenziale des Mikrozensus. In: Zeitschrift für Familienforschung, 19, S. 186-209. [.pdf]

Since Microcensus 1996

Andrea Lengerer & Mara Boehle

Construction of derived variables on household and family within the microcensus 1995

Bernhard Schimpl-Neimanns & Karen Schmidt

(ZUMA, Mannheim, Mai 1997)

Available for download: This text including SPSS instructions for the generation of Bandsatzerweiterungen (variables that characterise the household as a wholederived variables) .

From the 2005 Microcensus onwards, the household is recorded in publications from official statistics using the survey characteristics of the household's main income earner as a proxy. Up to and including 2004, the concept of the household reference person was used for this purpose. This is the first person of a household entered in the questionnaire, whereby the order corresponds to certain specifications. However, this definition is not the same as the head of the household. As a rule, the head of the household is the person who has the greatest influence on the socio-economic situation of the household ("main earner").

For comparative analyses over time, it is advantageous to be able to use operationalisations of both concepts. In addition, only some information on the older concept of household reference person is available in the data from 2005 onwards. Using the example of the 1996-2004 Microcensus data, the report describes how the concept of the main income earner can be implemented retrospectively. SAS, SPSS and Stata programs are available as microdata tools for retrospective typification of the main income earner in the Scientific Use Files of the 1996-2004 Microcensus.

Schimpl-Neimanns, Bernhard, und Tony Siegel (2011): Typisierung des Haupteinkommensbeziehers im Mikrozensus 1996-2004. GESIS-Technical Report 2011/07 [.pdf]

Download of the programs

From the 2008 Microcensus onwards, information on migration background is provided in the Scientific Use Files. However, already with the amendment of the Microcensus Act 2005, a number of new questions were included in the Microcensus that provide information on the topic of "migration and integration" in Germany. As these years are also of great interest for research, working aids have been developed with which the information on migration background can be compiled retrospectively. The report describes the implementation of the typification with SAS, SPSS and Stata programs.

Jäger, Delia, und Bernhard Schimpl-Neimanns (2012): Typisierung des Migrationshintergrundes in den Mikrozensus Scientific-Use-Files 2005-2009. GESIS-Technical Report 2012/08 [.pdf]

Download of the programs (incl. conversion table)

2009 migstat09_spss.zip migstat09_stata.zip migstat09_sas.zip
2008 migstat08_spss.zip migstat08_stata.zip migstat08_sas.zip
2007 migstat07_spss.zip migstat07_stata.zip migstat07_sas.zip
2006 migstat06_spss.zip migstat06_stata.zip migstat06_sas.zip
2005 migstat05_spss.zip migstat05_stata.zip migstat05_sas.zip

The following documents contain a list of the typifications and band set extensions in the respective microcensus year, as well as a description of the generation of the respective variables.

1997 [.pdf]
1995 [.pdf]