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Respondents of the NLSY97 were born in the years 1980-84 and were 16 to 20 years old in the fourth round of annual interviews. Although the response rates for the first three rounds of interviewing were above 90 percent, the response rate for Round 3 was slightly lower than that of Round 2. The payment incentive during the first three rounds was constant at $10 and was paid by the field interviewer at the completion of the interview. Concerned over the decline in responses rates and its implication for future rounds, the sponsor of the study, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), applied for and received approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct an experiment manipulating the timing of payment and the level of respondent fee paid. The interviews for the NLSY97 are conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) of the University of Chicago under contract to the BLS. The experiment had two treatments: (1) payment of the fee prior to scheduling the in-person interview; and (2) increases in respondent fees.

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97 (NLSY97) is a new survey undertaken by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Begun in the mid-sixties, the "NLS Program" has followed men and women as they enter, develop and retire from their jobs and careers over the past three decades. The five previous cohorts of NLS data have been among the most widely used omnibus, large-scale household surveys in the US, used by social scientists for basic and applied research and having substantial influence on social policy by contributing to our nation's understanding of the labor market, the role of human capital in earnings, the importance of race, gender and age in occupation and wage determination, and many other areas. These data sets have influenced numerous labor and welfare policies and informed a wide range of private and public choices, including the importance of innate ability in determining earnings, the complexities and dynamics of decisions about marriage, family and work.

The NLSY97 is a new cohort of approximately 9,000 men and women age 12-16 on December 31, 1996 (i.e., individuals born in 1980-1984). This new data set became available to the public for research purposes in January 1999. The data set contains over 2,000 variables about these 9,000 youths, collected in face-to-face interviews of about 72 minutes with the youth, plus about 60 minutes with the youth's parent, and an additional 30 minutes with a family member describing the youth's family circumstances and history. Since the data were all collected by computer, there is considerable complexity as well as richness of detail in these data files. See the attached l isting for a more detailed listing of the content of the first round instruments.

The introduction to the issue, "The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 " Cohort" by Robert Michael and Michael Pergamit describes the content and initial fielding effort for the new cohort. The remaining six papers investigate a particular behavioral or policy issue using the NLSY97 data. The papers were chosen to illustrate the breath of the survey, especially on topics of interest to the JHR readership. More than 30 papers were presented at the conference.

Other papers appear in September 10, 2001 issue of the Monthly Labor Review and in Social Awakenings: Adolescent Behavior as Adulthood Approaches, edited by Robert T. Michael and published by Russell Sage Press (New York: 2001).

Designed as a longitudinal survey, the NLSY97 follows the lives of these young men and women as they make pivotal decisions as to whether they should continue their education after high school or choose an occupation and enter the world of work. We follow the progression of their lives as they become independent adults, settle into careers, form relationships, and make decisions about cohabitation, marriage, and the formation of families.

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In 1965, at the prompting of the Assistant Secretary of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, individuals from the Department of Labor (DOL) and Ohio State University designed the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. At the time, the participants did not realize that they were creating one of the premier, large scale national longitudinal surveys in the United States. Initially funded for 5 years by the Department of Labor, the "Parnes" data, as the Original Cohorts were called, continued for 37 years, with the last scheduled fielding of the women samples in 2003.1 The success of the Original Cohorts led to the creation of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79).