Direct and indirect measures of ethnicity: how different definitions affect the size and characteristics of various ethnic groups

This paper is one of a series of reports investigating the quality and completeness of data gathered by the new ancestry question that was asked in the [U.S.] Census Bureau November 1979 Current Population Survey (CPS) and the 1980 decennial census. The paper has two aims: first data from the November 1979 CPS are analyzed to illustrate how the definition of an ancestry group influences estimates of its size and characteristics. Second the ancestries reported in the November 1979 CPS are compared with those in the decennial census taken 5 months later to test for reliability of ancestry reporting. (EXCERPT)