Part A - Draft June Supporting Statement

Department of Commerce
United States Census Bureau
OMB Information Collection Request
Current Population Survey (CPS) June Fertility Supplement
OMB Control No. 0607 - 0610

A.

JUSTIFICATION
1.

Necessity of the Information Collection
The purpose of this request for review is to obtain clearance for the
supplemental inquiry concerning fertility to be conducted biennially
in conjunction with the June Current Population Survey (CPS).
This supplement is sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau. The collection
of these data is authorized under Title 13, United States Code, Sections
141 and 182.
The 2016 June Fertility supplement, as it will appear in the CPS
instrument, is shown in Attachment A. This year, the 2016 Fertility
Supplement will ask fertility questions (Items SF1 and SF2) and questions
on marital and cohabitation status (SF3a and SF3b) of females 15-50 years
of age. These items, which were also asked in the June 2012 and 2014
supplements, provide additional information about mothers’ living
arrangements at the time of the first birth.
The June 2010 and 2008 Fertility Supplements asked women about the
birth of the last child. These differed from the June 1998 and the June
1995 supplements, which only included fertility items. The 1998
supplement contained fertility and birth expectations items, whereas the
1995 supplement contained fertility and marital history items.

2.

Needs and Uses
The data collected from this supplement are used primarily by government
and private analysts to project future population growth, to analyze
childbearing patterns, and to assist policymakers in making decisions that
are affected by changes in family size and composition. Past studies have
documented profound changes to historical patterns that have occurred in
fertility rates, family structures, premarital births, and the timing of the
first birth. The data collected from the “marital and cohabitation status
items” will be used by government and private analysts to analyze
mothers’ living situations at the time of the first birth; the data will also fill
a need for information that is not available in other Census Bureau
surveys.

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The CPS characteristics, such as family income, household relationships,
and labor force status, when matched with fertility data, can produce
estimates of potential needs families may have for governmental
assistance. For example, these needs include aid to families with
dependent children, childcare, and maternal health care for single-parent
households. The fertility data also assist researchers and analysts who
explore such important issues as premarital childbearing and
postponement of childbirth because of educational or occupational
responsibilities and goals. As a result of the rapid changes in the economy,
the June Fertility supplement offers analysts with a key indicator of family
economic resources, namely, the employment status of women with infant
children.
Item SF1 establishes the number of children ever born, and Item SF2 asks
in what year the first child was born. Fertility Items SF1 and SF2 have
been a part of the June CPS Supplement annually or on a regular basis for
over 40 years.
Discontinuance of the Fertility Supplement would interrupt a data series,
which is built upon previous surveys first collected in June 1971. Without
current fertility data, data for the most recent female cohorts (age 18-24)
would be missing in fertility projections. The statistics and projections
from these data are useful for legislators in the public sector and
businesses that make policy and resource decisions about childcare,
development, and changes in family life.
Information quality is an integral part of the pre-dissemination review of
information disseminated by the Census Bureau (fully described in the
Census Bureau’s Information Quality Guidelines). Information quality is
also integral to information collections conducted by the Census Bureau
and is incorporated into the clearance process required by the Paperwork
Reduction Act.
3.

Use of Information Technology
Since January 1984, we have collected the CPS data using computerassisted interviewing. We designed the supplemental questions to obtain
the required information with minimal respondent burden. The proposed
items and interviewer procedures were developed over years of
consultation among the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS), and other government agencies. The use of computer-assisted
personal and telephone interviewing is deemed the most appropriate
collection methodology given existing available information technology.

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4.

Efforts to Identify Duplication
The Census Bureau has consulted with other government agencies, such as
the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the National Institute
for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to develop the
Fertility Supplement. The Census Bureau has investigated other Census
Bureau surveys and determined that the data in this supplement are not
collected in any other survey that could provide the user with comparable
accuracy in detailed fertility patterns.
The American Community Survey (ACS), in an effort to reduce
respondent burden, contains one fertility question that asks whether the
women gave birth in the last year, which can only be compared to the
previously collected 2008 and 2010 CPS June Fertility Supplements. This
provides needed data at state and local levels for planning purposes in
examining the potential needs of mothers with newborns. However, the
absence of a question on children ever born on the ACS means that we do
not know parity of the birth--i.e., whether it was a first birth or higher
order birth. In addition, the June Fertility Supplement can provide
analysts with the ability to track childlessness over time, which provides
an important measure of how family life has changed and resources
needed by families differ by the childbearing experiences of American
women. The American Community Survey does not provide these data.
The 2016 June Fertility Supplement begins with two birth-related items.
First, there is a question on how many children a woman has ever had,
followed by the year of the first birth. This is followed by items on marital
and cohabitation status at the time of first birth. Since the 2010 June
Fertility Supplement, similar estimates of births in the last year as in the
ACS (i.e., births that have occurred since the previous June), provided us
with the birth order of the child and a duration specific estimate of when
the woman last had a birth. In the June 2012 report (Attachment B2), the
ACS question on women who had a recent birth permitted us to examine
labor force patterns of women who had a birth in the last 12 months (see
page 10) and were in the labor force (see Table 3). This is similar to the
data we used to have in the CPS Fertility Supplement. The CPS Fertility
Supplement data, however, will provide a look at completed fertility,
changes in childlessness over time, and the living arrangement of the
woman at the time of her first birth. None of these estimates can be made
using ACS data.
The CPS Fertility Supplement is the only source of data that provides a
comprehensive set of historical analysis as described in item A2. No other
data set collects these measures as regularly and as often as CPS,
providing a long historical series of estimates.

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Refer to Attachment B1 for a recent table using 2014 fertility data. For
additional information published using the 2014 CPS Fertility
Supplement, access the following link:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/fertility/data/cps/2014.html
Refer to Attachment B2 for a report published using estimates from the
CPS data on fertility.
5.

Efforts to Minimize Burden on Small Business
The collection of fertility information does not involve small businesses or
other small entities.

6.

Consequences of Less Frequent Collection
The June Fertility Supplement is conducted to determine current fertility
rates for women in different socioeconomic groups and to project future
population growth. If the collection of information was conducted less
frequently, the fertility data would not be sufficiently monitored to
accurately measure fertility events of women as they enter the ages when
marriage and childbearing typically begin. Less frequent reporting would
result in a distortion of segments of the population whose fertility
backgrounds change most rapidly.
In addition, there would be no consistent measure of fertility
characteristics of women who are graduating from school and entering the
labor force.

7.

Special Circumstances
There are no special circumstances. We collect the CPS data in a manner
that is consistent with the OMB guidelines.

8.

Consultations Outside the Agency
The following person has been in frequent consultation since October
1997 concerning the development of this supplement:
Lynne Casper
University of Southern Calf.
Dept of Sociology
3620 Vermont Avenue
Kaprielian Hall, Room 352
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2539

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The result of these consultations is the final set of questions. In addition, a
statement soliciting comments for improving the CPS data is prominently
placed in all the Census Bureau publications that cite the CPS data.
We include a similar statement in the technical documentation that
accompanies the microdata files. Finally, we published a notice of our
intent to ask the fertility questions in the October 16, 2015, edition of the
Federal Register (see Vol. 80 pg. 62513). We did not receive any
comments relevant to the collection. The CPS advance letter (see
attachment C) provides respondents with an address at the Census Bureau
to which they can submit general comments on the survey and specifically
those comments regarding respondent burden.
9.

Paying Respondents
The Census Bureau does not make any payments or provide any gifts to
individuals participating in the CPS.

10.

Assurance of Confidentiality
The Census Bureau will collect the Fertility Supplement data in
compliance with the Privacy Act of 1974 and the OMB Circular A-130.
Each sample household receives an advance letter approximately one
week before the start of the initial CPS interview (see Attachment C). The
letter includes the information required by the Privacy Act of 1974,
explains the voluntary nature of the survey, and states the estimated time
required for participating in the survey. Interviewers must ask if the
respondent received the letter and, if not, provide a copy and allow the
respondent sufficient time to read the contents. Also, interviewers provide
households with the pamphlet The U.S. Census Bureau Respects Your
Privacy and Protects Your Personal Information, which further states the
confidentiality assurances associated with this data collection effort and
the Census Bureau's past performance in assuring confidentiality (see
Attachment D). All information given by respondents to Census Bureau
employees is held in strict confidence under Title 13, United States Code,
Section 9. Every Census Bureau employee has taken an oath to that effect
and is subject to a jail penalty or substantial fine if they disclose any
information given to them.

11.

Justification for Sensitive Questions
The June Fertility Supplement does not include any questions of a
sensitive nature.

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12.

Estimate of Hour Burden
The estimated respondent burden is 500 hours. This is based on an
average one-minute interview for each of the 30,000 women in the
supplement universe.
The actual respondent burden is dependent upon the size of the household
and the characteristics of its occupants. One respondent answers for the
entire household.

13.

Estimate of Cost Burden
There are no costs to respondents other than that of their time to respond.

14.

Cost to Federal Government
The estimated cost to the government for the CPS program is $94 million
in FY 2016. The costs are to be borne by the Census Bureau, the BLS,
and other government agencies, if involved. We estimate the cost of the
supplement on fertility to be $142,000, all in FY 2016.

15.

Reasons for Change in Burden
The estimate of burden in hours is unchanged from the previous collection
request.

16.

Project Schedule
The June CPS, of which this supplement is a part, will be conducted
during the week of CPS interviewing. Processing of this supplement will
commence in July. The public use file will be released in the spring of
2017. Final reports will follow late that same year.

17.

Request to Not Display Expiration Date
The June Supplement is administered as part of the CPS monthly
interview. However, this supplement (as well as all the CPS supplements)
bears an OMB control number and expiration date which is different from
the basic CPS interview. The OMB control number and expiration date
for the CPS basic interview is included in the advance letter we give
respondents (see Attachment C). Because of these difficulties and
anticipated respondent confusion involved with expressing a separate
control number and expiration date to respondents for the supplement
questions, we do not wish to display the OMB control number and
expiration date for the CPS June Supplement.

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18.

Exceptions to the Certification
There are no exceptions to the certification.