Appendix 6: Event History Creation and Documentation

Appendix 6: Event History Creation and Documentation

The NLSY97 survey records significant life-course transitions experienced by young people in a longitudinal format. The event history arrays document these events in a chronological format that records the significant transitions in a meaningful manner while maintaining data quality. Using these arrays, researchers can extract the status of a respondent at a point in time or over time. Event history arrays are generated for five distinct areas: employment, marital/cohabitation status, program participation, schooling, and arrests/incarceration. This section presents information on each type of event history array; for details on the chronological format of the arrays and the naming conventions used to identify the variables, users should refer to Appendix 7.