The Relationship Between The 1990 Census and ... - Census Bureau

Industry
1. Small, new, and residual categories can be affected the most by definition changes. For example,
the industry category showing the largest percent increase is “Other information services” (873.8
percent). This is a residual category (code 878) in the “Information” sector of the 2000
classification that did not exist as a separate category in 1990. It includes long-established
industries such as news reporting services, news syndicates, press associations, and wire news
services; most of these industries were classified as “Business services” (code 741) in 1990. Many
relatively new industries, however, are also included in “Other information services,” which may
have dramatically swelled the numbers in this 2000 category when compared to 1990. These new
industries include internet access providers, online information access services, database
information retrieval systems, and other “dot-coms.”
2. The industry category with the next largest percent increase is “Management of companies and
enterprises” (547.1 percent). This category is a brand new sector created in the 1997 NAICS. It is
supposed to comprise business establishments that hold the securities of companies for the
purpose of owning a controlling interest, and establishments that administer, oversee, and manage
their overall company or enterprise. This category did not exist as a separately identified category
or group in the 1990 Census. In both the 1990 Census and in Census 2000, respondents tended not
to provide the kind of information needed to distinguish workers in the management establishment
of a larger corporation or enterprise from those that work in the production or service-providing
establishments of the same company. As a result, this sector is probably underreported in both
censuses, and the apparently huge increase may be an artifact of this underreporting.
3. Other categories with high percentage increases, each doubling or more from 1990 to 2000, were:
“Other administrative and other support services” (208.1 percent); “Computer systems design and
related services”(199.7 percent); “Home health care services” (136.1 percent); “Professional and
commercial equipment and supplies, wholesale” (120.8 percent); “Radio, TV, and computer sales,
retail” (103.5 percent); and “Electronic shopping and mail order houses, retail” (102.8 percent). 7
4. The categories showing the greatest losses, each losing more than 60 percent of its numbers from
1990 to 2000 were: “Resin, synthetic rubber and fibers, and filaments manufacturing” (-76.3
percent); “Electric and gas and other combination utilities” (-67.7 percent); “Metal ore mining”
(-64.2 percent); and “Ordnance manufacturing” (-61.1 percent).
Occupation
1. As you might expect, the major occupation group with the largest percent increase from 1990 to
2000 was the one for “Computer specialists,” which more than doubled from 1990 to 2000 (122.2
percent increase). Within this group several detailed categories showed huge increases, some over
1000 percent: “Database administrators” (1773.4 percent increase); “Computer support
specialists” (1174.9 percent); “Network systems and data communications analysts” (1022.6
percent); “Network and computer systems administrators” (514.8 percent); and “Computer
software engineers” (194.5 percent), among others.
7 Increases and decreases may not be statistically significantly different from each other.
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