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 (or to any country in the case of the Peru surveys) 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 (or in any other country in the Peru surveys).
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 in the Peru surveys). 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. There are variations on this file for the Costa Rica and Nicaragua countries.
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.