Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS), sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, are a set of seven surveys designed to gather information at multiple points in time on the labor market activities and other significant life events of several groups of men and women. The NLS data have served as an important tool for social science and medical researchers from multiple disciplines and applied fields.

One NLS data set, the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) offers opportunities to address questions about intergenerational family processes. The NLSY79 began with a nationally representative sample of men and women who were age 14 to 21 in 1979. Beginning in 1986, data have been gathered about the children of the women in the 1979 cohort and these data are known as the NLSY79 Child Data, or NLSY-C. Interviews take place every two years and include parent reports on children's environments and well-being, common developmental measurements of children, and young adolescent self-reports. The NLSY79 over-sampled African-Americans and youth from low-income families, making it particularly informative for those groups. Because the NLSY-C tracks children born to a sample of women, it includes many sibling groups.

Although the surveys are well documented and accessible, with more than 300,000 variables collected across 4 decades, the NLS can be challenging to negotiate. The purposes of this presentation are to overview the data, particularly the NLSY79-C and to show how to search efficiently using Web Investigator, the online search and extraction tool, and how to access the various types of survey documentation.