The Censo Demográfico is conducted every ten years by IBGE. All households in the country are visited by IBGE agents. This survey counts the population and collects basic information about residents, such as age and gender.
IBGE also conducts a more detailed interview on a large random sample of households, investigating household members’ socio-demographic characteristics (schooling, income etc.), household’s characteristics (wall materials, plumbing, etc.), and possession of physical assets (refrigerator, car etc.). In the 2010 Census sample, there are 6.2 million households and 20.6 million individuals.
Users can access the microdata collected in these household surveys. For each year, there is a data file for each unit of the federation (state). Until 1991, there was only one file for both household and individual characteristics. Since 2000, there is one file for each type of record.
The package prepared by Data Zoom applies to the 1970, 1980, 1991, 2000 and 2010 rounds of the Census. It provides a tool for reading the microdata through STATA, generating STATA format files (.dta). All variables are named after IBGE dictionaries (the Portal provides an English version of the original dictionaries for download). In order to be able to use the package, the user must first obtain the microdata related to the rounds she is interested in. Data Zoom does not provide these data. The 2010 microdata and documentation are available for download from the IBGE website. For information on how to acquire other rounds, click here.
Because of methodological changes made by IBGE over the years, the same information may not be available every year and/or may not have been collected in the same way. Data Zoom offers an option to manipulate the variables subject to compatibility in order to standardize information over time. In this case, variable names are not the ones suggested by the original dictionary and a new dictionary is provided for download. The document entitled "Making Census compatible" explains all the procedures adopted in the process.
To install the package, type "net from http://www.econ.puc-rio.br/datazoom/english" in STATA's command window and click on "datazoom_censo". Due to the large number of options available to the user and the need to insert information for the proper functioning of the programs, it is strongly recommended that you use the package via dialog box. To access it, type "db datazoom_censo" on the command window. Also, the package has a help file to support the user. It can be accessed through the dialog box or by typing "help datazoom_censo" in the command window.