The geographic location of the plant, office, store, or other establishment where the person worked most last week (see the discussion of reference week under Labor Force Status), ascertained for persons at work last week, including both civilian employed and Armed Forces at work, and tabulated for persons 16 years old and over. These data were obtained on a sample basis.
If the person worked at more than one location for the same employer (such as a grocery store chain or public school system), the exact address of the location or branch where the respondent worked most last week was requested. Persons working at more than one job were asked to report the location of the job at which they worked the greatest number of hours during the census week. Salespersons, delivery persons, and others who worked in several places each week were requested to give the address at which they began work each day, if they reported to a central headquarters. For cases in which daily work was not begun at a central place each day, the person was asked to report the exact address of the place where he or she worked the most hours last week.
Responses were coded in census processing offices but only for a sample of approximately one-half of the long-form questionnaires (a cost-saving measure). All entries were assigned codes which define the work location in terms of State, county, place of 2,500 or more (1,000 or more in Alaska and Hawaii) as estimated prior to the census, or in the Northeast region, minor civil division. For residents of SMSAs, place of work was coded further to tract and block (if in a blocked area) if the place was within the same SMSA or multi-SMSA commutershed.
Place-of-work tabulations vary considerably from one publication series to another. PC80-1-C reports furnish data for each of the following categories:
All workers
Place of work reported
Worked in area of residence
Worked outside area of residence
Percent of those reporting place of work
Place of work not reported
In these tabulations, the place of work is shown in terms of whether or not it is within the "area of residence," the definition of which varies with the geographic summary level. For instance, if a given column in a table presents data for a county, the place of work lines indicate the number of county residents who work inside and outside that county.
Census Tracts (PHC80-2) reports present up to 20 place-of-work categories for SMSA's, SMSA counties, places of 10,000 or more in SMSA'S, and census tracts as illustrated in the following list:
Inside SMSA
Omaha, Nebr. central business district
Remainder of Omaha city, Nebr.
Remainder of Douglas County, Nebr.
Bellevue city, Nebr.
Remainder of Sarpy County, Nebr.
Council Bluffs city, Iowa
Carter Lake city, Iowa
Remainder of Pottawattamie County, Iowa
Outside SMSA
Lincoln city, Nebr.
Remainder of Lancaster County, Nebr.
Cass County, Nebr.
Fremont city, Nebr.
Remainder of Dodge County, Nebr.
Washington County, Nebr.
Mills County, Iowa
Elsewhere
Place of work not reported
Up to 20 separate work locations are recognized in these PHC80-2 tabulations and on STF 4. The same 20 locations are used throughout each SMSA, but they vary from SXSA to SMSA and from county to county in nonmetropolitan areas.
Special tabulations can be prepared at user expense which make use of the additional detail available on census basic records. For instance, tabulations can be generated which show commuter flows by origin and destination in terms of census tracts within a given SMSA or multi-SMSA commutershed. Characteristics of workers by place of work can also be tabulated.
Public-use microdata "A" and "B" samples report place of work in the same terms as place of residence, i.e., States and "county groups" with 100,000 or more inhabitants. Within large SMSA's, individual counties and places over 100,000 are frequently identified as county groups making possible some analysis of commuting patterns by commuter characteristics. The "C" sample identifies place of work in central cities and in places in four size categories.
It should be noted that place-of-work tabulations do not necessarily give the total number of persons who work in the specified area, only those who also reside within the area summarized. In the above example, the number reported as working in the central business district would not include workers who commute from outside the SMSA being summarized.
Since Place of Work was coded only for a sample of one-half of all long-form questionnaires, along with Residence in 1975 and Travel Time to Work, it required an estimation scheme which differed from that used for full-sample items. As a consequence, the estimated number of workers 16 and over 35 derived from place-of-work tabulations will differ somewhat from the corresponding figure derived from tabulations of Means of Transportation to Work, a full sample item. Further, any cross-tabulation of place of work by other items is necessarily based only on the half-sample.
Place of work was asked first in 1960, when the inquiry was limited to the State, county, and city of work. In 1970, the question took on its current form, requesting the specific street address and ZIP code. A higher percentage of cases was successfully coded to tract and block of work in 1980 than in 1970, due to improvements in coding materials.
Data on place of work tabulated for inside and outside the area of residence, as discussed above, are new for 1980.
See also: "Transportation to Work, Means Of;" "Travel Time to Work".
