Colombia

COL14 - Databases

PERS

A person-level file that provides general demographic information and a few migration measures for each member of a surveyed household, and for other children of the household head who are no longer members of the household. Data include age, sex, relationship to head of household, marital status, current economic indicators, and characteristics of the first and last migration trips made to the United States and to other locations in the home country. Migration trips are defined as those that involve work, the active search of work, or otherwise a period of residence in the United States. In addition, basic health variables were compiled for the household head and spouse only.

MIG

A person-level file that provides data on all household heads with labor or residential experience in the United States or in any destination country. Hence, each record corresponds to a migrant household head. It contains measures of economic and social activity in the destination country. Some refer to the migratory experience in general, while others specifically target the most recent trip.

Variations over MIG file in Colombia:

The Colombian surveys produced the MIGOTHER file, which provides data on the migratory experience of the spouse or a child of the household head. These data were only collected if these two conditions were met: the household head did not have international migratory experience and his/her spouse, or one of his/her children, did. For this other migrant, health variables were compiled as well.

HOUSE

A household-level file containing information on household composition, economic and migratory activity of household members and other relatives, home/real estate ownership and amenities, vehicle ownership and financing, and business ownership, operation and financing. Each record corresponds to a household.

LIFE

An event-history file where each record is a person-year. Life file details the labor and family histories of each head of household, for each year since birth until the year of the survey. These data are supplemented by various time-constant variables gleaned from the previous three data files.

SPOUSE

An event-history file where each record is a person-year. Spouse file details the labor history of each spouse of household head, for each year since birth until the year of the survey.

COMMUN

This file provides some basic information on the surveyed communities, regarding basic utilities, health, school, sports and banking facilities, road infrastructure, etc. Each record corresponds to a community.