The 1990 Decennial Census form provided instructions for respondents to list all persons living at the residence as of April 1st and to list all persons who were staying at the residence who had no other home. These initial instructions were followed by lists of types of people to include and exclude on the census form.  These lists corresponded to "census residency rules." Similar rostering approaches are used for most Census Bureau current surveys .. Research has shown that persons are nonetheless included and/or left off the form in error. There are many reasons for these within-household coverage errors: not reading
the instructions fully, if at all, general discrepancies in the interpretation of census residency rules, and deliberate concealment. The Living Situation Survey is one of the projects currently underway at the Bureau of the Census to assess rostering techniques in order to determine whether there is a better methodology for transmitting the instructions and rules of whom to list so that persons will be enumerated correctly and efficiently. This paper presents results from the Living Situation Survey's roster research.
The Living Situation Survey (LSS), conducted by Research Triangle Institute for the Bureau of the Census, uses a battery of roster probes to identify all persons with some attachment to the sample housing unit within a specified reference period. In contrast to the census, the LSS has neither an "Include" nor a "Do NOT Include" list. Many of the persons rostered on the LSS would not be considered residents of the housing unit using the 1990 Census Residency Rules. Using data from the Living Situation Survey, this paper assesses the impact of using an array of roster questions. The persons identified by each roster question are examined in detail to determine if there are general categories of people identified by each probe. The probes that identify groups of persons who are typically misreported are examined as well. These results are then compared to results from previously-conducted roster research studies.