NLSY79 Child and Young Adult

The Home Observation Measurement of the Environment-Short Form (HOME-SF) is the primary measure of the quality of a child's home environment included in the NLSY79 child survey. It has been extensively used as both an input in helping to explain other child characteristics or behaviors and as an outcome in its own right for researchers whose objective is to explain associations between the quality of a child's home environment and earlier familial and maternal traits and behaviors.

The HOME-SF is a modification of the HOME inventory (Caldwell and Bradley 1984, 1992), a unique observational measure of the quality of the cognitive stimulation and emotional support provided by a child's family. The HOME-SF is about half as long as the original HOME Inventory, an adaptation necessitated by survey time and cost constraints. More than half of the HOME-SF's items are multi-response maternal reports that were reworded, with the assistance of the instrument's designers, from the original HOME Inventory's dichotomous observer ratings.

In addition to the overall HOME-SF score, the Child file includes two subscores: a cognitive stimulation and emotional support score. These are also described below.

Description of the HOME

A complete listing of the HOME-SF items appears in Appendix A in the NLSY79 Child/YA Codebook Supplement. From 1986-1998, all mother-report HOME items were located in Section 1 of the Mother Supplement. In 2000 the HOME items designed for children under age four were moved to the Child Supplement, but returned to the Mother Supplement the following survey year. All the mother report HOME items were consolidated in the Mother Supplement starting in 2002, the year the Mother's questionnaire was converted to CAPI. The HOME items based on interviewer observation appear in the Child Supplement for all survey years.

The HOME-SF is divided into four parts based on child age: (1) children under age three; (2) children ages 3-5; (3) children ages 6-9; and (4) starting with the 1988 survey round, children ages 10 and over. As outlined more fully below, the set of questions included in the HOME sections of the survey was expanded at several survey points. Note: None of the added items affect the overall HOME score or subscores in any way.

Bettye Caldwell designed the Infant version of the original HOME Inventory and, with Robert Bradley, developed the Preschool and School Age versions. Bradley and Caldwell reviewed and approved the final draft of the Infant, Preschool, and Elementary HOME-SF versions used in the 1986 Mother and Child Supplements of the NLSY79, and Bradley was involved in a 1988 review of what has now become known as the HOME-SF to distinguish it from the original.

Changes in the HOME

The following changes have been made to the HOME sections since they were included in the first child survey in 1986:

• In 1988 a version of the mother-report HOME was added for children 10 and older (in 1986 one set of items was used for all children ages 6 and older). 
• Beginning with the 1992 Mother Supplement, code categories were added to the questions on the relationship of the child's father/father-figure to the mother, and a category was added to the parent efficacy question for children ages xx and older. 
• Beginning in 1994, one additional sequence was added to the HOME assessment to measure child-parent closeness: Mothers are asked how close each of her children feels to her, to the child's biological father, or to his or her stepparents (e.g., see Q16a for children under the age of three).
• In 1996, check questions asking if the child ever sees his or her father were dropped.
• In 2000 only, the HOME questions addressed to the mother for children under the age of 4 years were moved from the paper Mother Supplement to the Child Supplement. In 2002 all the mother report HOME items were returned to the Mother Supplement. While the question format was slightly altered from the Mother Supplement paper questionnaire for CAPI administration starting in 2002, the content of these items remains the same.

Scoring the HOME-SF and its subscores

The total raw score for the HOME-SF is a simple summation of the recoded individual item scores and it varies by age group, as the number of individual items varies according to the age of the child. The procedure used to recode non-dichotomous responses into a 1,0 form is documented in Appendix A. The data transformation process used in all survey years was essentially the same.

The total HOME-SF score and the two subscores have one implied decimal place. For example, a score of 30 in the public data file is really 3, and so on. In addition, total scores were imputed for children where one or more of the component items had inadvertently been left unanswered. The imputation procedure assigns an average value, derived from all those items that had been completed, to each of the unanswered items. Proration flag variables specify the number of items that require imputation for the different age groups; a score of zero on this proration flag variable means that all individual component items were answered. Since the maximum number of missing items in the early paper questionnaire survey rounds can range up to a total of 26, users may wish to check the flags that indicate the total number of missing items (HOMEFA-Dyyyy) for the extent of imputation applied in the total score. For the two subscores specified below, a more stringent proration rule was followed: scores were derived only for cases where no more than one item was missing.

Recoding of HOME items

Prior to constructing an overall score and the two subscores for the HOME-SF, all of the individual items were translated into dichotomous zero-one variables and then summed. The precise recoding used in computing the HOME scores can be found in Appendix A. The dichotomous HOME items, available for on the public data file, are assigned respectively to the following areas of interest:

• ASSESSMENT 1996 (C17600.01-C17600.89)
• ASSESSMENT 1998 (C18996.00-C19084.00)
• ASSESSMENT 2000 (C25061.00-C25149.00)
• ASSESSMENT 2002 (C25344.00-C25432.00)
• ASSESSMENT 2004 (C28047.00-C28135.00)
• ASSESSMENT 2006 (C31140.00-C31220.00)
• ASSESSMENT 2008 (C36182.00-C36262.00) 
• ASSESSMENT 2010 (C39970.00-C40050.00) 
• ASSESSMENT 2012 (C55408.00-C55488.00) 
• ASSESSMENT 2014 (C58161.00-C58231.00)

Cognitive stimulation and emotional support subscales

In addition to the overall HOME-SF score, the Child file includes two subscores: a cognitive stimulation and emotional support score. The (questionnaire item) components of the total scale, as well as cognitive stimulation and emotional support subscales are specified in Appendix A. Because there are no appropriate national norms available for the overall HOME-SF score or its components, internally normed standard and percentile scores are provided for the overall HOME-SF scores and for the cognitive stimulation and emotional support subscores.

The HOME discipline items

Several of the HOME-SF items required review and coding of verbatim comments from the mother in order to fully utilize the responses originally coded as "other." The HOME-SF Part B (for children 3-5) contains items concerning the mother's response to the child hitting her (question HOME-B08B starting in 2002). Part C (for children 6-9) and Part D (for children 10-14) of the HOME-SF contain items concerning the mother's response to the child saying "I hate you" or swearing at her in a tantrum (question series HOME-C22B and HOME-D21B respectively, starting in 2002). These items are recoded "1" if the parent's response is moderate, defined as without harsh reprisal. Note: For question names prior to 2002, users should search on "spank" using Word in Title in NLS Investigator.

The discipline item for children ages 3-5 contributes to the HOME-SF scale scores only when certain alternatives ("send to room," "talk," "ignore," and "give a chore") are selected and the "other" alternative is without harsh reprisal--that is, if a mild reaction is the first response. The discipline item is scored zero if any of the following are selected: "hit," "spank," or the "other" alternative is harsh. Harshness is defined as either extensive or excessive deprivation (time-out longer than two hours; deprivation longer than two days) or physical punishment (firmly grasping the child, spanking then talking, or talking then spanking).

The HOME discipline item for children 6 and older was scored in a similar manner. Yelling back and withdrawal of love were assigned a value of "1" if there was no indication of a severe or physical response. The item is scored zero if "spanking" is selected or if the "other" alternative is excessive (longer than three hours of time-out; longer than three days of deprivation) or if physical means ("eat soap") are the first types of punishment selected. Examples of verbatim scores as harsh are "break him up," "spank and ground for two weeks," and "spank then explain why." If the length of time was not specified ("send to room"), then it was assumed to be a moderate amount of time, so scoring the item was mild. Other examples of verbatims scored non-harsh are "never happens," "depends on the situation," "stand in corner until apologizes." Another example of a mild response (conveying no harsh discipline) was "give him something to eat." A few other verbatims should be noted. Some mothers selected the "hit" category and commented, "Then say I'm sorry," while others who checked "hit" said, "But not like I'd hit an adult." The latter were scored as harsh and assigned a value of "0."

Three primary coders were typically used in this process. Inter-coder reliability on the coding of the HOME discipline items has been evaluated using Cohen's Kappa and also by computing percent disagreement. In 2002 and 2004 there was 100 percent agreement on the recoding decisions for the discipline items.

Age eligibility for the HOME

All children under the age of 15 living with their mothers are eligible for the HOME assessment (until 1994 all children, regardless of age, had a HOME supplement completed by their mother). Thus, children born by the 1986 survey date (and still below the age of 15 in 2002) may have eight rounds of HOME scores available. Children born between 1986 and 1988 may have seven HOME scores and children born since the 1988 survey can have up to six HOME scores--assuming of course that their mothers completed a HOME assessment for them at the relevant survey points. The HOME was not administered after the 2014 survey round.

Norms for the HOME

Internal norms for the NLSY79 HOME were developed using standard normal curve assumptions. Children were normed on a single year of age basis with each (weighted) single year age of age group being assigned a standard score mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15. Percentile scores were derived from the standard scores using an inverse normal routine. To the extent that the single year of age data deviate from normality, this procedure produces less than optimal results. An alternate percentile score can be generated using the empirical cumulative distribution function by age that is computed using the sampling weights. That frequency distribution could be used to crosswalk from raw score to percentile score.

Completion rates for the HOME

Table 6 in the Child Assessments—Introduction section indicates the number and types of children at different ages for which a HOME assessment was completed in the current survey round. Overall, 88 percent of children (under age 15) interviewed or assessed this round have a valid HOME score. This level of completion for the HOME assessment is slightly lower than the level that has been maintained over recent survey rounds. Completion rates are lower for the youngest children, because the interviewer observation items at the end of the Child Supplement are less likely to be completed for this age group. In recent survey rounds, since there are no assessments directly addressed to children under the age of four, interviewers are less likely to see the mother in direct contact with the child, and thus may be unable to answer items that require direct observation of mother-child contact. (This lack of data is a more significant issue with respect to the emotional support subscore than the overall HOME-SF score because the conditions permitting proration of subscores are more stringent, as noted above.)

Validity and reliability for the HOME

The HOME assessment is one of the most used child assessments. It is widely employed both as an input, predicting many other child outcomes, and as an outcome in its own right. For example, analyses based on the NLSY79 child data indicate that the HOME-SF is closely related to several different indices of family poverty, and, that the measure is sensitive to increments in family income, particularly when looking at children born into poverty. The overall HOME-SF scale and the cognitive stimulation and emotional support subscales are used frequently as outcomes of interest predicted by various family circumstances, such as mothers' and fathers' employment. These measures of the home environment are often used as predictors of children's cognitive and/or behavioral outcomes using PPVT, PIAT, and BPI scores. Studies that utilize existing or previously constructed measures from the HOME-SF typically cite one or more of the following sources for reliability and validity information: Baker and Mott, 1989; Menaghan and Parcel, 1989 & 1991; Luster and Dubow, 1990 & 1992; Parcel and Menaghan, 1990. A comprehensive review evaluates the strengths and limitations of the NLSY79 HOME-SF scales as well their utility in research across a variety of disciplines (Mott, 2004).

Researchers have used variations on the overall HOME-SF scale to isolate a facet of the home environment for theoretical reasons. For example, father presence has been isolated in some studies so that its unique effects can be examined (Mott, 1993; Baydar, 1995). Although not as frequently utilized as the overall scale and the two main subscales, individual items and researcher-constructed subscales representing a variety of specific concepts are also studied as predictors and as outcomes. For example, some studies use measures of discipline/punitiveness constructed from one or more HOME-SF items to predict later child behavioral outcomes (Dornfeld and Kruttschnitt, 1992; McLeod and Shanahan, 1993; McLeod et al., 1994; Rodgers et al., 1994; Parcel and Geschwender, 1995; Straus et al., 1997; McLoyd and Smith, 2002).

Some researchers with concerns about the reliability of some of the subscales have opted to rely on the overall HOME-SF (Ketterlinus et al., 1992). Some analysts, who have conducted confirmatory factor analysis on factor structures for the HOME-SF for younger children, recommend that the HOME-SF should not be thought of as measuring a single concept (Ferron et al., 1994). Researchers with concerns about the validity of the HOME for Hispanic children should be aware that, during the survey years in which there were significant numbers of Spanish-speaking mothers and children, the instrument was available in Spanish.  An extensive discussion of the unique aspects and numerous applications of the NLSY79 HOME scales can be found in Mott, 2004.

An extensive body of research has developed in which the NLSY79 HOME scales have been used. The NLSY Child Handbook: 1986-1990 describes this research in detail through 1990, emphasizing earlier work that examined the reliability and validity of the HOME. The NLSY Children-1992 provides further evidence regarding linkages between the HOME scale and subscales, and a variety of family and maternal antecedents. Finally, The NLSY79 Child Assessments: Selected Tables provides detailed distributions by age and race/ethnicity for the overall HOME scores and the two subscores. All of these documents are available on the Research/Technical Reports page. Data users are encouraged to use the online, searchable NLS Annotated Bibliography to identify the extensive publications using the HOME items.

HOME scores in the database

As indicated above, the items that mothers complete depend on the age of their child: children under age 3 years, 3-5, 6-9, and 10 and over follow different question sequences. The HOME items and the recoding instructions can be found in Appendix A. Question names for the raw and normed HOME scores for the final survey round are listed in Table 1 in the Child Assessments—Introduction section.

The following citations refer to research cited in the user's guide and to basic background documents on the assessments and other instruments used in the NLSY79 Child and Young Adult surveys. A comprehensive, annotated online bibliography of NLS research provides additional references for research using the child and young adult data.

Documents and reports listed below that are prepared by the Center for Human Resources Research are available on the Research/Technical Reports page.

Achenbach, Thomas M. and C. S. Edelbrock. 1983. Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist and Revised Child Behavior Profile. Burlington, Vermont: University of Vermont, Department of Psychology.

Baker, Paula C. and Frank L. Mott. 1995. "Improving Data Quality Through CAPI: Evidence from the 1994 NLSY Child and Young Adult Data." Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, San Francisco. Columbus: The Ohio State University, CHRR NLS User Services.

Baker, Paula C., Canada K. Keck, Frank L. Mott, and Stephen V. Quinlan. 1993. NLSY Child Handbook, Revised Edition: A Guide to the 1986-1990 NLSY Child Data. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University, Center for Human Resource Research.

Bates, J. E. 1980. "The Concept of Difficult Temperament." Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 26 (4): 299-319.

Baydar, Nazli and April Greek. 2001. "Externalizing and Internalizing Subscales of Behavior Problems Index." Working Paper. Seattle: University of Washington, School of Nursing.

Baydar, Nazli. 1995. "Reliability and Validity of Temperament Scales of the NLSY Child Assessments." Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 16: 339-370.

Baydar, Nazli, Patricia Hyle and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn. 1997. "A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of the Birth of a Sibling During Preschool and Early Grade School Years." Journal of Marriage and the Family, 59 (4): 957-965.

Bee, H., K. Bernard, S. Eyres, C. Gray, M. Hammond, A. Spietz, C. Snyder, and B. Clark. 1982. "Prediction of IQ and Language Skill from Perinatal Status, Child Performance, Family Characteristics, and Mother-Infant Interaction." Child Development 53: 1134-1156.

Bradley, Robert H. and Bettye M. Caldwell. 1976. "The Relation of Infant's Home Environments to Mental Test Performance at Fifty-Four Months: A Follow-up Study." Child Development 47: 1172-1174.

Bradley, Robert H. and Bettye M. Caldwell. 1980. "The Relation of Home Environment, Cognitive Competence, and IQ Among Males and Females." Child Development 51: 1140-1148.

Bradley, Robert H. and Bettye M. Caldwell. 1984. "The Relation of Infant's Home Environment to Achievement Test Performance in First Grade: A Follow-up Study." Child Development 55: 803-809.

Bradley, Robert H., Bettye M. Caldwell, and R. Elardo. 1979. "Home Environment and Cognition Development in the First Two Years: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis." Developmental Psychology 15: 246-250.

Bradley, Robert H., Robert Flynn Corwyn, Margaret R. Burchinal, Harriet Pipes McAdoo, and Cynthia Garcia Coll. "The Home Environments of Children in the United States Part II: Relations with Behavioral Development through Age Thirteen." Child Development 72 (November/December 2001): 1868-1886.

Bradley, Robert H., Robert Flynn Corwyn, Harriet Pipes McAdoo, and Cynthia Garcia Coll. "The Home Environments of Children in the United States Part I: Variations by Age, Ethnicity, and Poverty Status." Child Development 72,6 (November-December 2001): 1844-1867.

Buchanan, C., Maccoby, E., and Dornbusch, S. 1991. "Caught between Parents." Child Development, 62, 1008-1029.

Buros Institute for Mental Measurements. 1992. Mental Measurements Yearbook. Lincoln, Nebraska.

Buros Institute for Mental Measurements. 1994. Tests in Print. Lincoln, Nebraska.

Caldwell, Bettye M. and Robert H. Bradley. 1984. Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment. Little Rock: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Center for Child Development and Education.

Campos, Joseph J., K. Barrett, M. E. Lamb, H. H. Goldsmith, and C. Stenberg. 1983. "Socioemotional Development." In M. M. Haith and J. J. Campos (eds.), Handbook of Child Psychology, Volume 2; Infancy and Developmental Psychobiology, pp. 783-915. New York: Wiley.

Carlson, Marcia Jeanne. "Family Structure, Father Involvement, and Adolescent Behavioral Outcomes." Journal of Marriage and Family 68,1 (February 2006): 137-154.

Center for Human Resource Research. The NLSY79 Child Assessments: Selected Tables. Columbus: The Ohio State University, CHRR NLS User Services.

Center for Human Resource Research. (updated periodically). Research Using NLSY Data on Fertility, Child Care and Child Development: A Bibliography. Columbus: The Ohio State University, CHRR NLS User Services.

Center for Human Resource Research. (updated bienially) NLSY79 User's Guide. Columbus: The Ohio State University, CHRR NLS User Services.

Center for Human Resource Research. 2000. NLSY79 1998 Child and Young Adult Data Users Guide. Columbus: The Ohio State University, CHRR NLS User Services.

Center for Human Resource Research. 1991. "Maternal-Child Health Data From the NLSY: 1988 Tabulations and Summary Discussion," Columbus: The Ohio State University, CHRR NLS User Services.

Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay, and Gordon, Rachel A. 1996. "Economic Hardship and the Development of Five- and Six-Year-Olds: Neighborhood and Regional Perspectives," Child Development 67,6 (December): 3338-3367.

Colder, Craig, Joshua A. Mott, and Arielle Berman. 2002. "The Interactive Effects of Infant Activity Level and Fear on Growth Trajectories of Early Childhood Behavior Problems." Development and Psychopathology, 14: 1-23.

Cooksey, Elizabeth C., Menaghan, Elizabeth G., Jekielek, Susan M. 1997. "Life-Course Effects of Work and Family Circumstances on Children," Social Forces 76,2 (December): 637-665.

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Elardo, Richard D., and Robert H. Bradley. 1981. "The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Scale: A Review of Research." Developmental Review 1: 113-145.

Elardo, Richard D., Robert H. Bradley, and Bettye M. Caldwell. 1975. "The Relation of an Infant's Home Environment to Mental Test Performance from Six to Thirty-Six Months." Child Development 46: 71-76.

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Gortmaker, Steven, Jerome Kagan, Avshalom, and Phil Silva. 1997. "Daylength During Pregancy and Shyness in Children: Results from Northern and Southern Hemispheres." Developmental Psychobiology 31(2): 107-114.

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Kim, Hyoshin, Nazli Baydar and April Greek. 2003. "Testing Conditions Influence the Race Gap in Cognition and Achievement Estimated by Household Survey Data." Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 23,5 (January): 567-582.

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Turner, Michael G. 2000. "Good Kids in Bad Circumstances: A Longitudinal Analysis of Resilient Youth." Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Cincinnati.

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Wechsler, D. 1974. Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-Revised. New York: The Psychological Corporation.

Yeates, K., D. MacPhee, F. Campbell, and C. Ramey. 1983. "Maternal IQ and Home Environment as Determinants of Early Childhood Intellectual Competence: A Developmental Analysis." Developmental Psychology 19: 731-739.

Zill, N. 1985. Behavior Problem Scales Developed from the 1981 Child Health Supplement to the National Health Interview Survey. Washington, DC: Child Trends, Inc.

Zill, N. 1990. Behavior Problems Index Based on Parent Report. Washington, DC: Child Trends, Inc.

Zill, Nicholas, and James L. Peterson. 1986. Behavior Problems Index. Washington, DC: Child Trends, Inc.

Zill, N., & C.A. Schoenborn. 1990. "Health of Our Nation's Children: Developmental, Learning, and Emotional Problems, United States, 1988." Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics, No. 190. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The panel dimension of the NLSY79 data collection permits one to cumulate sample cases for children at specified ages across survey points, thus attaining rather substantial sample sizes for those ages. Pooling in this manner also can greatly enhance the heterogeneity of the sample for specific research topics. The trade-off to this methodology is that the ability to follow a particular age cohort across survey years becomes somewhat limited, although it is still doable for selected research topics. Table 1 below highlights potential sample sizes using this approach.

Pooling the Child samples. From the perspective of the younger children, it is possible to attain single year of age samples numbering in the thousands for specific research efforts. For example, if one wishes to examine associations between scores on the digit span assessment and other factors for seven year olds, it would be possible to cumulate a sample of about 4,000 seven-year-old children from the first to the current assessment survey year (see Table 1 below). Because these children would have been born to mothers in all years between 1979 and the current survey round (see Table 2 in the Sample Design section), the mothers of these children would range in age from their teens to their forties. The relevance of this pooling approach for evaluation of the child data, utilizing various assessments, is dealt with in the "Repeat Assessments" section of the Child Assessments--Introduction.

Pooling the Young Adults. Parallel estimates can be found for young adults. Because the young adult interviews have only been ongoing since the 1994 survey round, no single year-of-age cumulative estimate can include more than eleven points. Nonetheless, returning to Table 1 below, the number of cases cumulated in this way for ages 15 to 18 all attain single year of age totals of between 3,417 and 3,560 cases. It is worth noting that this sample cumulation modestly increases the heterogeneity of these young adult samples. For example, cumulating cases at these early young adult ages expands the age of the mothers at children's birth from mid-adolescence to the late forties. Because beginning in 2010 young adults age 31-32, 35-36, 39-40, 43-44, etc., as of December 31 of the survey year are not fielded, pooled sample sizes in these age ranges will be constrained.

These sections outline some research topics for which the NLSY79 Child and Young Adult data are particularly appropriate. Specific topics are not explored in depth but instead are presented as examples of a range of subjects that can be investigated. The focus here is on ways in which data from the main NLSY79 mothers, the younger children, and the young adults can be linked, allowing researchers to carry out not only within but also cross-generational research. Specific procedures for accessing and linking the various data files are discussed in Linking Children, Young Adults, and Mothers.

Note: Throughout these sections, the "current survey round" refers to the most recent public data release.

The NLSY79 main respondents were first interviewed in 1979. An in-depth discussion of the information available for these main respondents is presented in the most recent NLSY79 User's Guide. As of the current survey round, the NLSY79 Child/Young Adult sample encompasses nearly all of the children that will ever be born to this cohort of women -- women who were 55-64 years old as of their 2020 interview date -- and they range in age from infancy into their late-forties. Large samples of these children are available for analysis throughout childhood and adolescence. Further, because growing numbers of children enter the young adult ages with each survey round, researchers are able to undertake analyses relating to transitions into adulthood for increasingly representative samples of youth. In addition, large minority samples are available, and as described in the sections of this guide on the sample, a variety of sibling-oriented analyses are possible. By pooling groups of children at certain ages across a number of years, researchers can also enhance sample sizes for relatively narrow age ranges, while at the same time improving the heterogeneity of the sample.

Further, a revised custom weight program is now available that permits users to more effectively combine weighted samples across survey years. Users do need to keep in mind that the oldest children were born to young NLSY79 mothers (and that the youngest children in the current survey round were born to mothers at the oldest ages). However, this sample selection issue has become less significant over time, as with every passing survey round the older children are increasingly born to women who gave birth at mainstream childbearing ages. See the "Sample Changes over Time" paragraphs in the Sample Design section for more detailed information about maternal age at birth.

Click a topic below for more information:

In addition to this online User's Guide, a number of documentation items are provided to help users understand the Child and Young Adult data. Except for the Codebook, which is accessed through the NLS Investigator search and extraction Web program, all of these items are available within the Child section of this website. Additional assistance is available through NLS User Services.

Codebook

The NLSY79 Child and Young Adult (and main Youth) data files are each documented by a codebook that lists each variable and briefly describes its content. Each variable has a codebook page that contains the variable's unique reference number, coding categories for the variable, frequency distributions, minimum and maximum values, and any special notes. Entries for questionnaire items also contain links to the previous and next question in the instrument. The hyperlinked reference numbers that appear in codebook entries for created variables simply take the user to the next item in the list, generally within the area of interest. Users can review codebook pages for variables of interest through NLS Investigator, and extracts of variables include a custom codebook file containing codebook pages for all variables in the extract. For more information, see the Investigator User Guide.

Child and Young Adult survey instruments

Since most of the constructed variables and test scores found within the Child data set are derived directly from one or more survey instruments, users should have access to at least one set of questionnaires. Copies of the Child and Young Adult questionnaires and interview aids are available in either PDF or HTML format on the Questionnaires page. This page has links to the following questionnaires:

• Child Supplement (CS): public user version of the Child Supplement questionnaire (paper and CAPI); contains the interviewer-administered assessments
• Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS): public user version of the self-report questionnaire for children age 10-14; administered on paper, PDA or laptop
• Mother Supplement (MS): public user version of the maternal report questionnaire for each child; contains the mother-report assessments
• Young Adult Questionnaire: public user version of the Young Adult CAPI questionnaire
• Child School Survey Principal Questionnaire: paper questionnaire about school characteristics completed by school principal for each child in the 1995-1996 NLSY79 Child School Survey
• Child School Survey Schooling Questionnaire: paper questionnaire completed by school personnel about each child in the 1995-1996 NLSY79 Child School Survey

NLS bibliographies

NLS User Services maintains an annotated, searchable archive of NLS research available by clicking the tab in the main menu. Records of more than 9,000 journal articles, working papers, monographs, reports, presentations, theses, and dissertations are available for users to search, retrieve, and print customized listings of NLS research. CHRR periodically compiles listings of research based on the NLSY79 child data. Some of these bibliographies are listed under Child Survey Resources on the Research/Technical Reports page.

Other documentation

In addition to the codebooks, variable descriptions, search indices, and items described above, CHRR provides the following materials to users as additional documentation for the NLSY79 Child and Young Adult data:

• NLSY79 Child Handbooks 1986-1992 (detailed information about the NLSY79 Child assessments and supplementary information about sample constraints in previous survey rounds)
• Child Assessment Tables reports (tabular summaries of assessment scores for survey rounds from 1994 to the present)

These handbooks and assessment tables reports are available on the Research/Technical Reports page.

Important information and errata

Periodically CHRR provides users with updates to the existing data or documentation. Notes are sometimes prepared that clarify certain elements of the current files. This information is compiled into a list of Errata posted to the Child/YA User's Guide. Updates to previous data rounds are noted in the documentation for those rounds. Users are strongly encouraged to consult the errata page as they are working on their research projects to ensure that they are aware of any notices that may affect variables of interest.

The Child/Young Adult data files contain many constructed variables drawn from multiple sources, including both cross-sectional and longitudinal information in both the child and mother records. Users of the Child/Young Adult data who wish to construct variables not found in the Child/Young Adult files may access the mothers' records in the main Youth files in order to obtain the necessary inputs. A useful variable for linking the mother's longitudinal record to the child is C00052.00, which defines the first survey year (of the mother) following the child's date of birth. The question name for this variable is FSTYRAFT. (NOTE: Children born prior to the 1979 survey date are assigned 1979 as their first post-birth survey point.)

In general, a researcher interested in creating a variable that references a particular post-birth survey point for all children would need to follow a two-step procedure. For example, to create a variable that defines the first post-birth survey maternal school enrollment status for all children from information collected at the mother's survey dates, one would take the following steps:

1. Find Question Name = FSTYRAFT (reference # C00052.00) to define the appropriate survey year following the child's date of birth
2. Use the value for FSTYRAFT to choose a maternal enrollment status variable, depending on the date of the birth of the child

If the child's first post-birth survey year FSTYRAFT is 1982, the maternal enrollment status variable as of the 1982 interview (Qname = ATTSCH1982, reference # C00570.00) would be selected. Similarly the appropriate enrollment status information could be combined across the relevant surveys into one created "first post-birth survey enrollment status" variable.

For more refined linking procedures, the user may need to access maternal interview dates as well as the dates of many relevant events, such as school leaving, job changes, and marital changes. Variables that are keyed to the child's date of birth or to the mother's date of interview can be used to (1) link social, economic, and demographic maternal behaviors with a child's birth or age at a particular point or to (2) define the survey point closest to a particular child's birth or attained age.

The pre- and postnatal variables (C03200.00-C03392.10) are already defined in an appropriate life cycle context, since they reference either the pregnancy leading up to a particular birth or an event/behavior during the first year following a birth. A missing value in this series of constructed child variables means that at least one input from the main Youth file was missing (refer to the note in the Child codebook for C02700.00).

Linking Data Files across Cohorts

The child identification code (CPUBID, C00001.00) allows the user to link children with their siblings on the NLSY79 Child files and with their mothers on the main NLSY79 files. The child ID is created by appending a 2-digit code (01 to 11) to the end of the mother's public ID (R00001.00 in the NLSY79 data). Thus, children with the same first 5 digits in their IDs are siblings. Since the child ID contains the first 5 digits of the mother ID, either the child ID or the mother ID (MPUBID, C00002.00) enables the users wishing to create a mother-based file to extract maternal characteristics and write them out only for mothers. Appendix H provides additional information about the identification codes available in the Child/YA data.

Child ID vs. Young Adult ID. Users will note that identification codes are provided for all children as CPUBID (C00001.00) in the CHILD BACKGROUND area of interest and again for young adults as CASEID (Y00001.00) in YA COMMON KEY VARIABLES. The only distinction between these two variables is that the young adult CASEID is only available for children who have been interviewed as young adults. The variable called CPUBID is a comprehensive ID code with values for all children (including young adults), regardless of age or interview status. The YA CASEID is included for the convenience of users accessing only the Young Adult data.

Linking Children and Young Adults to Mothers. Linking NLSY79 mothers to their children can be done by using the case identification code for both the mother (R00001. in the main youth file) and the child (C00001.00). To merge the files, save the Child and Young Adult case ID (C00001.00, CPUBID or the Young Adult case ID, Y00001.00, CASEID) and mother case ID (C00002.00, MPUBID) from an extract of the Child and Young Adult file and save the mother case ID (R00001.00) from an extract from the main NLSY79 file. The mother's case ID will be the same in both files. The CPUBID child ID is provided for all children, regardless of whether they are under age 15 or classified as young adults in any survey year. Appendix E (SPSS) and Appendix F (SAS) in the Codebook Supplement offer sample programs designed to assist users in merging files.

NLS Tutorial: Linking Mothers and Children. We have produced a tutorial that gives detailed instructions on how to link a data file of young adult children extracted from the Child/Young Adult database with a file from the main Youth file for mothers. This example with step-by-step instructions will assist users still uncertain about the linking process.

• Child
• Young Adult

Child

Interviewer Remarks in the Child Supplement. At the conclusion of each child interview, interviewers complete a summary evaluation of the overall interview and a series of "testing conditions" items, found at the end of the Child Supplement. These items, most of which are prefixed for with the phrase TESTING CONDITIONS or INT REMARKS, are assigned to the CHILD SUPPLEMENT area of interest. The following titles are used to describe these items in the documentation:

• INT REMARKS: ANY PROBLEMS WITH CHILD'S HEARING?
• INT REMARKS: ANY PROBLEMS WITH CHILD'S STATE OF HEALTH?
• INT REMARKS: ANY PROBLEMS WITH CHILD'S VISUAL SHARPNESS
• TESTING CONDITIONS: AMOUNT OF INTERFERENCE FROM DISTRACTIONS
• TESTING CONDITIONS: AMOUNT OF INTERFERENCE FROM INTERRUPTIONS
• TESTING CONDITIONS: AMOUNT OF INTERFERENCE FROM LIGHTING
• TESTING CONDITIONS: AMOUNT OF INTERFERENCE FROM NOISE
• TESTING CONDITIONS: AMOUNT OF INTERFERENCE FROM OTHER SOURCE
• TESTING CONDITIONS: AMOUNT OF INTERFERENCE FROM PRESENCE OF OTHERS
• TESTING CONDITIONS: AMOUNT OF INTERFERENCE FROM TEMPERATURE
• TESTING CONDITIONS: CHILD'S ATTITUDE TOWARD BEING TESTED
• TESTING CONDITIONS: CHILD'S COOPERATION
• TESTING CONDITIONS: CHILD'S MOTIVATION/INTEREST
• TESTING CONDITIONS: CHILD'S PERSEVERANCE/PERSISTENCE
• TESTING CONDITIONS: CHILD'S RAPPORT WITH INTERVIEWER
• TESTING CONDITIONS: WERE THERE ANY OTHER SOURCES OF INTERFERENCE?

The Child Supplement also contains two items in which the Interviewer indicates how shy the child was at the beginning and end of the interview. In 1986, these two items are documented as follows:

1. SHYNESS AT START
2. SHYNESS AT END

After 1986, the titles for these two items are as follows:

1. HOW SHY/ANXIOUS WAS CHILD WHEN HE/SHE MET INTERVIEWER
2. TESTING CONDITIONS: HOW SHY/ANXIOUS WAS CHILD AT END OF SUPPLEMENT?

In addition, the CHILD SUPPLEMENT area of interest contains interviewer check items that indicate the following:

• THIS HEALTH INFORMATION RELEVANT TO FUTURE INTERVIEWS?
• WHERE WAS CHILD SUPPLEMENT ADMINISTERED?
• IN WHAT LANGUAGE WAS THIS CHILD SUPPLEMENT ADMINISTERED?
• ANY SKIP ERRORS, QUESTIONS THAT WERE CONFUSING OR DIDN'T WORK?

Assessment-Specific Interviewer Remarks. At the conclusion of each interviewer-administered assessment in the Child Supplement, there is a series of interviewer remarks designed to describe the factors that might influence a child's performance. For each assessment the interview records:

• the child's energy level
• who else was present during testing
• what impact others might have had on a child's performance
• whether an assessment was prematurely terminated

Interviewers are also instructed to make comments in the assessments or interviewer remarks section if other languages were used in the interview to facilitate understanding. These remarks are in the CHILD SUPPLEMENT area of interest. The titles for these items are prefixed with the name of each assessment.

CSAS Interviewer Remarks. In the paper years, the Interviewer was asked to complete this question after the child had completed the Child Self-Administered Supplement:

• LIST QUESTIONS THAT CONFUSED, ANGERED, OR CAUSED DISCOMFORT TO THE CHILD OR QUESTIONS THAT YOU FEEL THE CHILD DID NOT ANSWER TRUTHFULLY. EXPLAIN.

Starting in 2002, when the Child Self-Administered Supplement became a CAPI instrument, the CSAS interviewer remarks question is documented as followed:

• CHILD SELF-ADMIN: INT REMARKS-NO QUESTION CONFUSED OR ANGERED CHILD

Starting in 2006, an additional question was added:

• CHILD SELF-ADMIN: INT REMARKS - CHILD HAD PROBLEMS WITH HOW TO USE DEVICE (LAPTOP)

Interviewer Remarks in the Mother Supplement. In the Mother Supplement CASI section, the interviewer indicates the language of administration, which, if any, questions caused problems and rates the mother's attitude about using the CASI section. These items are documented as follows:

• MS INTERVIEWER REMARKS: IN WHAT LANGUAGE WAS THIS MS ADMINISTERED
• MS INTERVIEWER REMARKS: RATING OF RESPONDENT'S UNDERSTANDING OF QUESTIONS
• MS INTERVIEWER REMARKS: NO QUESTIONS CONFUSED, ANGERED RESPONDENT

To date, little in-depth analysis has been completed that uses the interviewer reports of testing conditions. One study based on the NLSY79 child data found that differences in achievement test scores by race/ethnicity could be partly explained by testing conditions, including interviewer characteristics, interviewer-child interactions, and the testing environment (Kim et al., 2003). In a study of intergenerational predictors of racial differences in achievement, Mandara, Greene and Varner used the testing evaluation items to construct a scale of "test-taking motivation." They found that motivation was one important predictor of achievement as measured by PIAT Math and Reading scores (Mandara, et al, 2006).

The NLSY Children 1992: Description and Evaluation (available on the Research/Technical Reports page) contains a discussion of the impact of testing conditions on selected outcomes. Analyses of the information about the presence of others during the testing indicate that younger children may experience some difficulty in certain cognitive tasks when there is interference in the testing environment and when other adults are present. Younger children who took the SPPC assessment tended to report more positive self-evaluation in the presence of other adults while the presence of other children tends to boost the reports of older children on this assessment. These early results helped inform the field-testing protocol so that interviewer procedures could be refined to minimize any external effects on child performance.

Young Adult

At the conclusion of each young adult interview, interviewers complete a summary evaluation of the overall interview. The Young Adult interviewer remarks section, located at the end of the questionnaire, contains interview-specific and interviewer comment information, including the type of interview (personal or telephone); the language used to conduct the interview; various interviewer remarks on respondent's race, attitude, understanding of the questions, and presence of anyone else during the interview; and interviewer identification codes. These variables are located in the "YA Interview Remarks" area of interest and have question names starting with "QIR."

Appropriate sample weights are available in each year to adjust the un-weighted sample cases for the minority oversamples and year-to-year sample attrition. The sample weights for younger children and young adults:

1. adjust the un-weighted data for sample attrition of mothers and their children since the first survey round (1979) and the sample reduction due to the loss of the military and economically disadvantaged white oversample and
2. adjust the sample for the over-representation of black and Hispanic youth. 

For those interested in generating population estimates for prior survey rounds, sample weights for those survey rounds are available. 

Using these weights translates the un-weighted sample of children into a population that represents all children who have been born by that date to a nationally representative sample of women who were 14 to 21 on December 31, 1978. Beginning in 2002, a revised algorithm was used to compute the sample weights. For the 1986-2000 survey years, two sample weight variables are available for each year: the originally released sample weight and a revised weight using the new algorithm.

Weights are computed only for younger children who have been interviewed or young adults who have been fielded and interviewed in a given year. Children not assessed and young adults not interviewed (or interviewed but not fielded) in a given year are assigned a weight of zero for that year. Table 1 lists the complete set of child, young adult, and mother sample weights.

Revised Sampling Weights. Starting with the 2002 child survey round, an updated automated computation procedure was instituted to allow users to create custom sets of weights for analyses that require more than cross-sectional weighting information. The automated process was designed both to sum the same population totals and to follow the same procedures as done previously. Because of slight differences in the results, an additional set of revised cross-sectional weighting variables is provided for the Child survey years 1986-2000 (CSAMWTyyyy_REV) and for Young Adult survey years 1994-2000 (YAyyWEIGHT_REVISED). Users should find minimal differences between the two series of sample weights but are strongly encouraged to check if switching between the two types of weights affects their results.

The child/young adult sample weights adjust for sample attrition of NLSY79 mothers and children (including the loss of the military and white oversamples) and for over-representation of black and Hispanic respondents. Each set of cross-sectional child sample weights is computed by multiplying the mother's 1979 sample weight by a factor that is the reciprocal of the rate at which children in particular age/sample-type/sex cells are assessed or interviewed. 

The current public release contains a complete set of custom child weights for all child survey years in which values are assigned according to the following criteria:

• Each non-interviewed child's weight = 0.
• Each interviewed child's weight is equal to the mother's weight multiplied by the number of children her interviewed child represents.
• Every interviewed child represents himself or herself plus the number of non-interviewed, known children, plus the number of children estimated to have been born to non-interviewed mothers. This last set of imputed children is determined by determining the number of years since the mother was last interviewed and assigning the same number and ages of children born based on what was reported for interviewed mothers of the same sex and race.

In the other NLS cohorts, the cell collapsing code is relatively complex and allows the program to merge almost any set of adjacent cells. In creating the weights for the Child-Young Adult cohort the cell collapsing code is simpler. Generally cells are collapsed as follows:

• Only the end points are collapsed (oldest and youngest kids)
• The end point is the same for males and females (to follow how it is done prior to the custom weighting program)
• Cells are collapsed if there are fewer than 10 observed children

Customized Longitudinal Weights. Researchers who need to weight individuals who participated in multiple survey rounds (i.e., such as all children who participated in 1988-2008) are referred to the custom weighting program. Caution should be used when comparing weighted estimates across years since the composition of the sample can change in subtle ways depending on who was interviewed. The custom weighting program also offers the option of getting weights for a specific set of respondent ids.

Sample Weights to Identify Interviews. Users can also employ the Child sample weight variables to delineate their analysis sample and to identify respondents interviewed in each survey round. Restricting the sample to those cases with a sample weight value greater than zero "0" will yield the set of respondents interviewed and/or assessed in a particular survey year. A child sample weight (CSAMWTyyyy_REV or CSAMWTyyyy) GT "0" will indicate the number of children with either a Mother Supplement and/or Child Supplement.

Please note that in 2000, four Young Adult respondents who were part of the pool of oversample cases that were not fielded were inadvertently interviewed. For these four respondents, their interview data are included in the public release, but their sampling weights are set to zero. Similarly, since 2010, in each survey round some Young Adults over thirty who were not fielded ended up being interviewed. For these respondents, their interview data are included in the public release, but their sampling weights are set to zero. More detail on sample weights and interview status can be found in the section Missing Data: Noninterviews and Item Nonresponse.

Where to Find the Sample Weights. The list of sample weight variables for children and young adults appears in Table 1 above.

The Child sample weights are assigned to both the SAMPLING WEIGHTS and the yearly ASSESSMENT areas of interest. Children who have been assessed or interviewed in a given year have values greater than 0 on their sample weight for that year.

The Young Adult sample weights for each year are assigned to both the SAMPLING WEIGHTS and the YA COMMON KEYVARS areas of interest. These YA sample weight variables are specific to young adults interviewed in that year so that any young adult not interviewed or any child who is not a young adult in that year is assigned a value of "0." The Young Adult sample weights are assigned to both the SAMPLING WEIGHTS and the YA COMMON KEY VARIABLES areas of interest.

A Note about Sampling Weights

NLSY79 Child and Young Adult 1994-2016 data set includes revisions to several Young Adult sampling weights as well as the replacement of two revised Child sampling weights.

Young Adult Sampling Weights. Beginning in 2010, young adults over age 30 are only interviewed every four years. The interviewed sample is selected by age as of December 31 of the survey year, so that approximately half of the older young adults are eligible each round. Since 2010, young adults age 31-32, 35-36, 39-40, 43-44, etc. as of December 31 of the target year have not been fielded.

The algorithm creating the round-specific sampling weights did not adequately account for this change in fielding, leading older YAs in the age groups that were fielded (33-34, 37-38, 41-42, etc.) to receive disproportionately high weights. The algorithm has been readjusted and the round-specific sampling weights for the interviewed YAs over age 30 have been replaced in the following variables:

Y26159.00    [YA10WEIGHT]
Y29663.00    [YA12WEIGHT]
Y33318.00    [YA14WEIGHT]

Child Sampling Weights. An error in the code creating the revised round-specific sampling weights that were released in 2002 led to the 1986 and 1988 Child Sampling weights to be incorrectly calculated. The following weights have been replaced for all affected children:

C05812.01    [CSAMWT1986_REV]
C08007.01    [CSAMWT1988_REV]

The NLSY79 Child and Young Adult data release contains comprehensive information from the 1986 through the current survey round. The file also contains child-specific information from the mother's main Youth interviews. Certain variables are derived from the mother's longitudinal record while other data items represent the questions administered during the Child and Young Adult interviews and the responses from each child assessment. Finally, there is an extensive set of created variables on the file, based on the assessment and interview data.

Detailed information on the types of data available for the NLSY79 Children and Young Adults can be found by examining the field instruments and by searching the database indices. Instructions on how to search the database can be found in the Investigator User Guide. Researchers who are interested in items based on data from the mother's record are encouraged to access copies of the main Youth questionnaires and to review the NLSY79 main Youth documentation. These items are available in the NLSY79 section of the website. Information on how to link child and mother data can be found primarily in the section on Linking Children, Young Adults, and Mothers.

The NLSY79 Child data include demographic and family background, pre- and postnatal health history, home environment reports, information on child care and school experiences, items and scores from the biennial child assessments, and reports from the child "10 and older" self-report questionnaire. The Young Adult contains questionnaire items from all Young Adult interview years, covering areas such as family background, schooling, training, work and military experiences, relationship history, fertility, health, and drug and alcohol use, as well as a set of created variables for each round. Geographic information for young adults is available on a separate geocode file.

The type of variable may affect (1) the physical placement of the variable within the codebook (its sequence in the reference number list) and (2) the assignment of a variable to a particular area (or areas) of interest. Types of variables that appear in the public releases of the Child and Young Adult files include:

1. Direct (or raw) responses from a questionnaire or assessment or other survey instrument.
2. Recoded or edited variables constructed from raw data according to consistent procedures, e.g., coding of verbatim responses about jobs done for pay or religion other than the precoded categories. Such variables are marked as recode versions of the original.
3. Constructed variables based on responses to more than one data item or multiple reports to the same item, either from cross-sectional or longitudinal information. Some of these created variables are indices or scale summations, such as the assessment scores, and others are individual items edited for consistency where necessary, e.g., child background characteristics such as age, date of birth, and sex. (See additional information below.)
4. Constructed variables from a non-NLS data source, e.g., the County & City Data Book information present on the NLSY79 Young Adult geocode file.
5. Variables provided by NORC or another outside organization based on sources not directly available to the user, e.g., the transcript data and test scores from the child school survey.
6. Data collected from or about one universe of respondents reconstructed with a second universe as the unit of observation, e.g., variables on the NLSY79 Child data file that are based on inputs from the mother's main Youth record but linked to each child.

Constructed Child variables based on main Youth data

Constructed variables, drawn from the mothers' records, provide information on each mother's household composition, quarterly employment referenced to the birth of each child, and family background. While most information is cross-sectional, many variables link maternal events or behaviors to the child's life cycle-specific points after, or in some instances, before the child's birth. Any item from the complete record of the mother's main Youth record can be linked to the Child and Young Adult files.

Constructed Child- and Mother-specific variables

In addition to the questionnaire items and constructed assessment scores the NLSY79 Child data set contains a number of other constructed variables. Some constructed variables, such as pre- and postnatal care and child usual residence, are drawn from child-specific information collected in the mother's main Youth interview. Other constructed items, such as maternal household composition and family background, are created from mother-based information that does not vary across children. Constructed variables are generally found in the following Areas of Interest:

• CHILD BACKGROUND
• CHILD CARE
• FAMILY BACKGROUND
• MATERNAL HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION
• PRE/POST NATAL CARE

These created items include sibling identifiers, maternal family background, maternal household composition at each interview, and family educational background. Details on these constructed variables can be found in the Topical Guide to the Data. Mother-specific information present on the NLSY79 main data file and on special data sources such as the work history and geocode main Youth files can be linked with the Child data by case ID.

Constructed Young Adult variables

In addition to the questionnaire items from the Young Adult surveys, several constructed variables for Young Adults are available. Some of these created variables are available for all young adult respondents who were interviewed in any survey year (designated as XRND), while others are specific to a particular survey round. The Young Adult constructed variables are located in the Area of Interests called YA COMMON KEY VARIABLES and YA FERTILITY AND RELATIONSHIP DATA - CREATED. 

The following key variables are constructed for all young adults: young adult ID (Y00001.00, CASEID), date of birth, sex, race, the ID code of the mother, comprehensive biological child information, dates of first marriage and first cohabitation, as well as the following:

Additionally, XRND flags for completing specific degrees, as well as the month and year the degrees were received, are available for all young adults.

Details about key variables

Two key identification codes are provided: that of the Young Adult and that of the mother. Any child who has not yet aged into the Young Adult sample, or who is ineligible for fielding, or who has been fielded but not interviewed, will have a missing value (-7) on these two ID variables. Only children who have ever been interviewed as Young Adults have valid values. These variables are provided for users who want to quickly restrict their sample to ever-interviewed Young Adults. The ever-interviewed Young Adults also have an updated date of birth (month and year), sex, and race based on mother's racial/ethnic cohort from the 1978 screener.

Beginning with the 2000 release, three interview status variables are provided. First is the year of most recent Young Adult survey (Y12051.). This variable allows users to quickly identify when data for a non-year-specific variable would have been pulled. For example, if a respondent was last interviewed in 1994, only information from that year would have been available to use in constructing variables such as ever cohabited or ever reported a first marriage. 

The second interview status variable is the number of Young Adult interviews completed by a respondent (Y12052.). This variable allows users to assess how many respondents have multiple time points for repeated measures. Users are reminded, however, that there are a variety of factors that influence a respondent's value on this variable, such as when the respondent aged into the sample, during what years there were age or other restrictions applied to the fielded sample, and whether or not the respondent was actually interviewed in a given year. There are two flags per survey year, located in the CHILD BACKGROUND area of interest, allowing the user to identify whether a respondent was eligible to be interviewed as a Young Adult and whether or not a Young Adult interview occurred.

The last of these interview status variables is the number of Child survey years where the respondent has at least some interview or assessment data available (Y12053.). Users should be aware that the Child survey consists of two or three instruments, depending on the age of the child, and some respondents may have data for only one of these instruments in a given survey year. This variable, as with the number of Young Adult interviews, is provided to help users gain a quick portrait of data availability. 

New variables created by researchers

Researchers sometimes use the NLS public datasets to generate a new variable to use in their research. In some cases, researchers like to make that new variable publicly available (through their own data repository) so that it can be easily accessed for follow-up studies. This is permissible as long as researchers are using public NLS data (rather than restricted) and that they make it clear they are the author of the variable rather than the NLS team.

Each NLSY79 child variable has a "question name" that helps to identify it in the data file and permits users to locate the original question in the questionnaire. Variables in the NLSY79 child data are generally named according to the source from which they are derived. Items from the Child, Mother, and Child Self-Administered supplements have question names linked to the location in the instrument. For example, "CS94-14" (HAS CHILD EVER BEEN ENROLLED IN HEAD START?) comes from Q.14 asked in the first section of the Child Supplement in 1994. Acronyms are used to identify the scores derived from the child assessments administered at the time of the survey (e.g., BPI2002 for Behavior Problems Index-Raw Score, 2002). Mnemonic names identify constructed variables that are based on inputs taken from the main NLSY79 survey (e.g., AGEMOM2006 for Age of mother at interview date, 2006).

Through 1998, questions from the mother and child instruments are generally identified by "MS" for Mother Supplement or "CS" for Child Supplement and, starting in 2000, "CSAS" for the Child Self-Administered Supplement. The two digits that immediately follow this prefix refer to the year of the survey. Starting in 2000, question names for items from the child questionnaires generally indicate the topical section of the instrument from which each question was derived. For example, child question names beginning with "SCHL" come from the schooling section of the Child Supplement questionnaire; items prefixed with "HLTH" designate the child health questions in the supplement. The question name also indicates the order in which the question was administered within each section of a questionnaire. 

Constructed variables are usually named according to the topic of their content. The item called "FSTYRAFT" (C00052.00) in the CHILD BACKGROUND area of interest refers to the "first survey year of mother after the child's birth." Such items on NLSY79 mothers and their children are usually based on multiple inputs from the main youth and child survey instruments. Codebook entries for these items may include a reference to one or more main file reference number to give the user an example of the main Youth question on which the child-specific item is based. For example, in the PRE/POST NATAL CARE area of interest, the item PRE0009 (C03201.00) refers the user to R13284.00 in order to see the inputs to the variable that were extracted from the main Youth file.

• Child Question Naming Conventions
• Young Adult Question & Variable Names
• Child & Young Adult Reference Numbers

Child Question Naming Conventions

Mother Supplement Question Names

From 1986-1996 question names for items in the Mother Supplement have the following three components: (1) "MS" to designate the source of the item, (2) a 2-digit number to indicate the year of the survey round, and (3) deck and column number, used to designate the physical location on a data punch card in the days of paper data input. For example, in the item listed below, MS960329, the "MS" indicates the Mother Supplement, the "92" means the item is from the 1992 survey, and "0329" shows that the item was in Deck 3, Column 29 in the booklet.

In 1998 a similar system was used in naming Mother Supplement questions except that section number and question numbers replace the deck and column numbers, which were no longer relevant. In the example below, MS981B01 means that this item is from the Mother Supplement, 1998, Section 1-B (the HOME), question 1.

In 2000 a new naming system was introduced that more closely parallels the conventions used for the main Youth and Young Adult surveys. As seen in the example below, questions from the Mother Supplement still use the MS designation as well as a reference to the section and item number within the section, but the question names do not indicate the year of the survey.

NOTE: In 2000 the HOME and Temperament items have different question naming conventions depending on the age of the child. Items for children under age 4 that were administered in the Child Supplement are named according to the name of the assessment (e.g., HOME-B01 above). HOME and Temperament questions for children age 4 and older appear in the Mother Supplement and are therefore prefixed with "MS" followed by the section and item number (MS1-A01 means Mother Supplement, Section 1-A, question 01). Notes have been entered into the codebook for these items to alert users to this change in 2000. In 2002, all these mother-report assessment items returned to the Mother Supplement, where they continue to be administered.

Question Names for the MS in the main Youth Questionnaire. Starting in 2006, to reduce the time burden on mothers, the Mother Supplement was fully integrated into the mother's main interview as part of the Fertility Section of the Youth questionnaire. The content and basic structure of the child-based Mother Supplement were preserved, but instead of administering separate questionnaires, one for each child, interviewers asked the Mother Supplement questions in a series of child-by-child "loops" as part of the mother's main interview. The Mother Supplement data items appear both in the main Youth file and as child-based items in the MOTHER SUPPLEMENT2006-current survey areas of interest in the Child file. While the Mother Supplement question names in the mother's main Youth documentation contain the same string used for those questions in recent years, Mother Supplement items in the Child file are now all prefixed with "MS."

For example, the item on Head Start enrollment for Child 01 and Child 02 in the mother's main Youth questionnaire is documented as follows in the mother's main Youth data record:

The child-based version of this same Mother Supplement variable is labeled as follows in the Child file:

NOTE: In general, users of the Child data should access the "child-based" version of the Mother Supplement. Users of the Head Start data may be interested to know that mothers too were asked in 1994 if they attended Head Start.

Child Supplement (CS) Question Names

Through 1992, question names for items administered in the Child Supplement are constructed as follows: (1) "CS" to designate the Child Supplement, (2) a 2-digit number to indicate the year of the survey round, and (3) deck and column number, used to designate the physical location on a data punch card used in the early survey rounds. When CAPI was introduced in 1994, questions were no longer identified by deck and column but simply by item number.

Starting in 2000, questions in the Child CAPI Supplement are generally identified by the section of the questionnaire. In the example that follows, BKGN stands for the Child Background section of the questionnaire:

NOTE: Starting in 2006, nearly all the child background questions were moved into the Mother Supplement, which was integrated into the mother's main Youth interview. So an item such as BKGN-12, now appears prefixed as "MS-BKGN-12."

Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS) Question Names

Questions in the Child Self-Administered Supplement for children 10 and older are prefixed by "CS" until the 2000 survey when they begin with "CSAS." Through 1996, deck and column numbers were used to designate the question location in the CSAS booklet. The following example designates the year "96" and then deck "01", column "13" (pg. 3 of the paper booklet):

In 1998, item numbers are used.

Starting in 2000, the prefix CSAS designates that the item is from the Child Self-Administered Supplement and the item number corresponds to the actual question in the instrument:

Young Adult Question & Variable Names

Question names in the Young Adult surveys follow one of three general patterns. Individual items from the Young Adult CAPI questionnaire are usually prefixed by "Q" and the section number. The suffix generally indicates the order in which questions appear. Because questions asked in multiple rounds retain the same question name, many suffixes also include letters (e.g., Q4-31B). Thus, Q2-19 represents the following question (asked in each survey year) of the Family Background portion (Section 2) of the YA CAPI questionnaire:

In prior releases, questions from the Young Adult self-report booklet in 1994 and 1996 were prefixed with "YA" followed by the survey year, and then a designation of the deck and column number. In 1998, question names for these self-report items no longer incorporated the deck and column numbers and were simply named according to question number sequence in the booklet.

Since 2000, when the self-report questions were first incorporated into the self-report section of the YA CAPI questionnaire, they have been prefixed by "YASR":

In order to make the Self-Report data easier to search in Investigator, for the 2018 release, the questions from the YA Self-Report Booklets for 1994 to 1998 have been renamed to follow the naming conventions used since 2000. Any question that was in the YASRB and has remained in the CAPI questionnaire will now have the same question name across all rounds in which it was asked. Similarly, those questions only asked in the YASRB will have a CAPI-style name that allows users to easily identify these questions across the rounds in which they were asked.

Constructed variables on the Young Adult file are identified by mnemonic names related to their content. For example, the series of variables that identifies the type of residence in each survey round are named "RESTYPE" followed by a year designation.

Child & Young Adult Reference Numbers

All variables on the NLSY79 Child and Young Adult files are assigned unique identifiers called reference numbers, which determine the relative position of each variable within the codebook. Users of the main Youth data will recognize these reference numbers as conceptually equivalent to the "R"/"T" numbers used in the NLSY79 main Youth documentation.

Reference numbers that start with "C" are used for data items on the Child file. The "C" numbers appear in each NLSY79 Child codebook entry and also form the basis of the variable names on the SAS and SPSS control cards that are generated by the extraction procedures on the data set.

Reference numbers for Young Adult variables are prefixed with the letter "Y." Decimals in the Young Adult reference numbers generally indicate that more than one variable has been derived from a single question. However, decimals may also appear in reference numbers when variables have been added to the file after the original public release. For example, these variables have been added to the 1994 YA data: