The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a primary source of monthly labor force statistics for the US population. It is sponsored jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). About 60,000 U.S. households are polled – the data is then analyzed and converted into reports that estimate the unemployment rate, employment status, number of employees by occupation, range of weekly and hourly earnings, and numerous other aspects of the US labor force.
While the CPS does not directly track entrepreneurship, the data that it collects can be used to infer the impact of factors such as automation on various occupations. Researchers can differentiate between the destructive and transformative impact on (un)employment and map it to causal factors such as level of education, hourly earnings, etc.
Access to CPS Data
The Current Population Survey is free to access online. It has been used in the following works of entrepreneurship research:
- Fossen, F. M., & Sorgner, A. (2019). The Effects of Digitalization of Work on Entry into Entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019(1), 11095. https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2019.11095abstract
- Chen, W., Guo, X., & Iurchenko, D. (2020). College Education and Pull-Push Entrepreneurship: Impact on African Americans and Hispanics. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2020(1), 14425. https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2020.14425abstract