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National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97)

Errata for NLSY97 Round 20 Release

Newest errata

Respondent mode of contact variables added for R20 NLSY97 and R30 NLSY79

POSTED 10/23/24

Data identifying the mode of contact that most directly led to completion of the interview for a random subset of respondents will be added to both R30 of the NLSY79 and R20 of the NLSY97; the NLSY97 data and descriptions can be found in Contact_Mode_Variables_nlsy97.zip (see NLS79 errata for R30 data). There are two variables for each cohort, primary contact mode and secondary contact mode, that identify the source that was primarily, and secondarily, related to the respondent completing the interview. Coders manually reviewed each contact attempt for this subset of cases to determine the contact mode(s) that was most effective for getting the respondent to complete the interview.

Other errata

Corrections to created employment variables from Round 4 and 5

POSTED 8/26/24

A review of the Round 4 (2000) and Round 5 (2001) employment dates and reported hours data revealed issues that affected the calculation of some event history array and created variables. The issues are detailed below and the values are included in the latest release of the data.

  1. For a small set of respondents (less than 50) who answered don’t know or refuse to (1) the start month for a select set of jobs or (2) the stop month for any job, the imputed value was used in creating employment variables rather than the actual value. This potentially affects the following variables:
    • EMP_STATUS_year.wk
    • EMP_HOUR_year.wk
    • EMP_DUAL_x_year.wk
    • EMP_BK_WKS_year
    • EMP_BK_STATUS_year
    • EMP_BK_HOURS_year
    • EMP_START_WEEK.yr
    • EMP_START_YEAR.yr
    • CVC_WKSWK_TEEN2
    • CVC_WKSWK _YR.yr
    • CVC_WKSWK _ET.yr
    • CVC_WKSWK _SE.yr
    • CVC_HOURS_WK_YR_ALL.yr
    • CVC_HOURS_WK_YR _ET.yr
    • CVC_HOURS_WK_YR _SE.yr
    • CVC_TTL_JOB_TEEN2
    • CVC_TTL_JOB _YR_ALL.yr
    • CVC_TTL_JOB _YR_ET.yr
    • CVC_TTL_JOB _YR_SE.yr
    • CV_WKSWK_JOB_DLI.job
    • CV_WKSWK_JOB_YR.job.yr
       
  2. In the Round 4 (2000) data, a programming error in the event history program caused the start hours to remain rather than being overwritten by the current/most recent hours listed in YEMP-38000F; this affected about 1200 respondents over multiple weeks in the EMP_HOURS variables. The CVC_HOURS_WK variables were calculated correctly.
  3. For respondents (less than 70) reporting overtime or corrections in Round 4 (2000), the program incorrectly calculated these figures. This affected information in the EMP_HOURS array and CVC_HOURS_WK_YR_ALL, CVC_HOURS_WK_YR_ET, CVC_HOURS_WK_YR_SE.

These updates have been included in the most recent version of the public data.

Income and assets review

POSTED 5/15/24

The NLS program is conducting a review of income and assets topcoding and is working to standardize these values. As part of this review, adjustments have been made to a very limited number of values to reflect the current standards, including in the most recent version of the public data. This review also identified a small number of variables, affecting a very small number of cases, that were inadvertently left off of the public release. 

These updates have been included in the most recent version of the public data.

Updates to YOUTH_SIBRELY variables

POSTED 3/8/24

A review of the YOUTH_SIBRELY variables has identified 35 miscoded relationships in YOUTH_SIBRELY01.01 [R1309100] and seven miscoded relationships in YOUTH_SIBRELY02.01 [R1309200]. 

These updates have been included in the most recent version of the public data.