Household Mailstream Study, 1977

The primary purpose of this survey was to develop a description of the United States household mailstream for the United States Postal Service (USPS) and to provide annualized, nationwide estimates of the volume of mail received and sent by households in the United States. To this end, the survey gathered information on the characteristics of every USPS letter and package that was sent or received by each sampled household on every day of a preassigned week in the survey period. Daily accounts of items not handled by the USPS were also gathered, e.g., United Parcel Service, telegrams, long-distance telephone calls, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, free samples, campaign literature, and utility bills. In addition to providing mailstream information, respondents answered questions pertaining to their mail delivery and mailing practices, their knowledge of mail and other means of communications, and their opinions on both the performance of the USPS and on proposed changes in mail service and rates. They also supplied information on any stamp collectors living in their household, the age and sex of the collectors, the kinds of stamps they collected, and their expenditures on United States commemorative stamps and corner stamps from sheets of new USPS issues. The dataset includes data on the location of the household, length of residence in the current dwelling unit, family income, the age of each household member, and the age, sex, race, education, occupation, and employment status of the respondent and the head of household.