Methods for Identifying the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Workforce Population - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 295

As previously indicated, the Census sample frame, the Master Address File
(MAF), updated with additional physical addresses, is used for the CPS. However,
unlike the decennial Census, the CPS has no procedure for updating the MAF re-
garding informal dwelling locations that lack physical addresses. A cross-sectional
statewide survey of hired farm laborers in California found that a substantial
portion reside in informal dwellings that lack physical addresses (such as shacks,
garages, and illegal trailers) and would probably be missed by the CPS (Villarejo
and McCurdy, 2008).
About 70 percent of the CPS is conducted by telephone, using local residents
of the areas to be covered. But community-based survey research indicates that
one-fifth of dwellings occupied by hired farm laborers in California lacked land-
line telephone service (Villarejo et al., 2001); this may lead to bias in findings with
respect to hired farm laborers in a telephone survey.
Another bias in telephone surveys of hired farm laborers is the reluctance of
some workers to be interviewed by strangers asking personal questions. A recent
analysis compared findings in California obtained from a statewide, population-
based telephone survey of all adults with findings of a statewide cross-sectional
household survey of hired farm laborers in which biliterate, bicultural staff con-
ducted in-person interviews (Mines, 2005); the former survey appeared to be
successful in reaching English-speaking, home-owning farm workers but failed to
adequately include non-English speaking farm laborers who were renters.
The CPS employment-status findings are limited to people at least 16 years
old (BLS, 2007b). Farm employment includes some workers under 16 years old
and is legally permissible for persons as young as 12 years old and, in exceptional
circumstances, even younger (DOL, 2004). Hence, the AFF workforce will be un-
dercounted by an unknown amount in the CPS.
Employment and unemployment findings from the CPS are closely monitored
by government officials and economists and are even cited by Wall Street analysts
who regard them as indicators of the health of the American economy. It is gener-
ally agreed that the CPS findings are very accurate with respect to people who speak
English and do not migrate to find work. But scholarship has demonstrated that
the CPS does not accurately represent foreign-born, non-English speaking farm
laborers (Mines, 1998; Larson et al., 2002). In that regard, the CPS suffers from the
same deficiencies as the Census.
The annual March supplement to the CPS seeks to determine detailed demo-
graphic and other characteristics of the American population. Farm labor scholars
have pointed out that March is not the best month in which to survey hired farm
laborers working in the United States, and that the March supplement is likely to
yield findings on ethnicity, race, and foreign-born status of hired farm laborers
that differ substantially from those of the full population. However, it is likely that