Description

GRPDEPLY indicates whether, during the previous calendar year, the respondent had coverage, as a dependent, on employment-based health insurance. The interviewer asked whether, at any time during the previous calendar year, anyone in the household was covered by a health plan provided through a current or former employer or union (excluding military health insurance), and distinguished between policyholders and dependents covered by the plan through follow-up questions.

Persons who were policyholders for such insurance are identified in the GRPOWNLY variable. Up to two household members who were policyholders for employment-based group health insurance are identified in the GRPWHO1 and GRPWHO2 variables. Using the GRPWHO1, GRPWHO2, and LINENO variables, researchers can identify the policyholder(s) whose employment-based insurance provided coverage for someone coded as "Yes" in GRPDEPLY.

Through programming in IPUMS-CPS, other cases were added to the pool of positive responses for GRPDEPLY in 1996-2018. If the respondent mentioned dependent coverage on employment-based insurance in response to a catchall summary question on "other" health insurance plans (after hearing questions about many specific types of insurance coverage, including employment-based insurance), then that person was given a positive response for GRPDEPLY in IPUMS CPS.

Comparability

User Note: For a set of variables that addresses many of the comparability issues in the CPS health insurance measures, see the summary health insurance variables created by the University of Minnesota's State Health Access Data Assistance Center.

Beginning in 2019, only those respondents covered by employment-based health insurance during the last year were asked if they got that insurance coverage through a household member.

Beginning with the ASEC 2001 survey through the 2018 survey, the CPS added a verification question (see VERIFY for more information) to ascertain whether respondents who did not acknowledge health insurance coverage of various types in previous questions, actually lacked insurance coverage during the preceding calendar year. Persons who acknowledged health insurance coverage in this verification follow-up question were asked about the types of health insurance coverage they had. In IPUMS CPS, for the 2001-2018 ASEC survey, persons who reported dependent coverage for employment-based insurance in response to this question were added, through programming, to the pool of positive responses for the GRPDEPLY variable. For consistency in results before and after the ASEC 2001 survey, researchers should exclude cases of dependent coverage on employment-based insurance that were only identified via the verification question (i.e., exclude cases coded as "Yes" (2) in VERIFY when analyzing the GRPDEPLY data).

This variable is comparable for the period from 1996 through 2000.

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables

• UH_DEPGRP_A1
• UH_DEPHI_A1
• UH_DEPHI_A2