Merging area-level census data with survey data in Statistics Canada research data centres - ARCHIVED

This article explains how to append census area-level summary data to survey or administrative data. It uses examples from datasets present in Statistics Canada Research Data Centres, but the methods also apply to external datasets. Four examples illustrate common situations faced by researchers: (1) when the survey (or administrative) and census data both contain the same level of geographic identifiers, coded to the same year standard ("vintage") of census geography; (2) when the two files contain geographic identifiers of the same vintage, but at different levels of census geography; (3) when the two files contain data coded to different vintages of census geography; (4) when the survey data are lacking in geographic identifiers, and those identifiers must first be generated from postal codes present on the file. The examples are shown using SAS syntax, but the principles apply to other programming languages or statistical packages.