1989 Survey of Pension Providers
Summary Results
The Survey of Pension Providers was designed to gather more detailed information on the pension plans of survey participants than could reasonably be expected in a personal interview. For cases where either the respondent or the spouse or partner of the respondent had some pension coverage from a current job, the SCF interviewer asked for information that could be used to contact the providers of the pensions. The providers were asked for copies of the official summary plan descriptions, and this information was coded for use with the main survey data.
Documentation
Four types of technical documentation for the 1989 SPP are available: a reference manual, the 1989 coding instruments, the 1989 codebook, and the 1989 data dictionary.
Reference Manual for the 1989 Survey of Pension Providers
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
This manual contains general guidelines for coders who completed the coding instruments using data from the summary plan descriptions obtained from the pension providers for respondents and their spouses or partners. This document also provides a general description of the data.
Reference manual (2.2 MB PDF)
Coding Instrument for the 1989 Survey of Pension Providers
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
Information from the summary plan descriptions obtained from the pension providers of SCF respondents and their spouses or partners was abstracted using a combination of four coding instruments: Pension Provider Coversheet; Part I: General Plan Provisions; Part II: Defined Benefit Pension Plans; and Part III: Defined Contribution Pension Plans.
Pension Provider Cover Sheet (98 KB PDF)
Part I: General Plan Provisions (210 KB PDF)
Part II: Defined Benefit Pension Plans (3 MB PDF)
Part III: Defined Contribution Pension Plans (2.7 MB PDF)
Codebook for the 1989 Survey of Pension Providers
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
The codebook contains a description of the variables included in the public data set for the 1989 SPP.
Codebook (2.7 MB PDF)
Last updated Summer 1991
Data Dictionary for the 1989 Survey of Pension Providers
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
For each variable in the codebook, the data dictionary contains its number, its label, its location in each record in the data set, and the number of bytes it occupies.
Data dictionary (192 KB ASCII)
Survey Data
1989 Survey of Pension Providers Data
This is the final version of the rectangular ASCII file released to the public. PKZIP compression is available. (See H.15 for software to uncompress PKZIP files.) The size of the uncompressed ASCII flatfile is approximately 15 MB.
Survey data (290 KB ZIP)
Last updated December 20, 1993
Software
Two types of software are available for the 1989 SPP: a program for reading the data into a SAS data set and then merging that information with the corresponding cases in the main 1989 SCF data set; and a program for computing pension benefits for plan participants.
Software for Reading the 1989 SPP
The following program provides examples of SAS code to merge the 1989 SPP data with appropriate observations from the 1989 SCF. Because the 1989 SPP covered participants in the 1983-89 SCF panel and participants in the 1989 SCF cross-section, separate code is provided for linking the 1989 SPP data with either set of the 1989 SCF data.
Cross-section merge data (24 KB ASCII)
Panel merge data (5 KB ASCII)
SAS program (6 KB ASCII)
Programs to Compute Pension Benefits
Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
These programs are written in Borland Pascal (as distinguished from Borland Turbo Pascal). This software falls roughly into two parts: The first reads the SPP data and derives formula representations of the benefits from the plans. The second part uses these formulas together with the main SCF data (or other data) to compute (1) a benefit conditioned on a set of characteristics and (2) a present value of that benefit. The files are provided in a zipped file, which also contains documentation of the program. This documentation is also available separately in PDF format. The programs offered here were produced by the University of Michigan. No warranty is made for the performance of these files.
Program files including documentation (372 KB ZIP)
Documentation only (87 KB PDF)
Screener Data for Health Care
In the intitial contact with the pension provider, a set of questions was asked about the provision of health insurance coverage. The questionnaire and the data are provided below along with a data dictionary containing a variable number, a variable label with a cross-reference to the underlying question in the questionnaire, the location of the variable in each record, and the number of bytes occupied by the variable.
Questionnaire (277 KB PDF)
Data dictionary (9 KB ASCII)
Screener data (35 KB ASCII)