Information Collection Request for
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997
OMB # 1220-0157
Submitted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Summary 1
Supporting Statement 3
A. Justification 3
1. Necessity for the Data Collection 3
2. Purpose of Survey and Data Collection Procedures 3
3. Improved Information Technology to Reduce Burden 4
4. Efforts to Identify Duplication 5
5. Involvement of Small Organizations 5
6. Consequences of Less Frequent Data Collection 5
7. Special Circumstances 6
8. Federal Register Notice and Consultations 6
9. Payment to Respondents 9
10. Confidentiality of Data 9
a. BLS Confidentiality Policy 9
b. CHRR and NORC Confidentiality Safeguards 9
11. Sensitive Questions 10
12. Estimation of Information Collection Burden 12
13. Cost Burden to Respondents or Record Keepers 14
14. Estimate of Cost to the Federal Government 14
15. Change in Burden 14
16. Plans and Time Schedule for Information Collection, Tabulation, and Publication 14
17. Reasons to Not Display OMB Expiration Date 14
18. Exceptions to “Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions,” OMB Form 83-I 14
B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods 15
1. Respondent Universe and Respondent Selection Method 15
2. Design and Procedures for the Information Collection 16
3. Maximizing Response Rates 17
4. Testing of Questionnaire Items 18
5. Statistical Consultant 19
Attachment 1—Title 29 USC Sections 1 & 2 21
Attachment 2—Survey Applications 23
A. Use of the NLSY97 for Diffusion of Useful Information on Labor 23
B. Use of the NLSY97 in Understanding Labor Markets 23
1. Orientation toward the Labor Market 23
2. Factors in Educational Progress 23
3. Transition from School to Work 24
4. The Work Environment 25
5. Racial, Sex, and Cultural Differences in Employment and Earnings 25
6. The Relationships between Economic and Social Factors, Family Transitions, and Well-Being 26
7. Geographic Mobility 26
8. The Measurement and Analysis of Gross Changes in Labor Market Status 27
C. Use of the NLSY97 for Social Indicators Analysis 27
1. Delinquent Behavior, Arrest Records, and School Discipline 28
2. Drug and Alcohol Use 28
Attachment 3—BLS Commissioner’s Order 3-04 31
Attachment 4—Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 37
Attachment 5—Questions and Answers for NLSY97 Respondents about Uses of the Data, Confidentiality, and Burden 45
Attachment 6—Respondent Advance Letter and Locating Card Proposed for Round 10 of the NLSY97 47
Attachment 7—Changes to the NLSY97 Questionnaire from Rounds 9 to 10 49
This package requests clearance for the main fielding of round 10 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) and the NLSY97 pretest for round 11. The main NLSY97 sample includes 8,984 respondents who were born in the years 1980 through 1984 and lived in the United States when the survey began in 1997. Sample selection was based on information provided during the first round of interviews. This cohort is a representative national sample of the target population of young adults. The sample includes an overrepresentation of blacks and Hispanics to facilitate statistically reliable analyses of these racial and ethnic groups. Appropriate weights are provided so that the sample components can be combined in a manner to aggregate to the overall U.S. population of the same ages.
The survey is funded primarily by the U. S. Department of Labor. Additional funding has been provided in some years by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Defense, and Justice, and the National Science Foundation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has overall responsibility for the project. The project is managed by the Center for Human Resource Research (CHRR) at The Ohio State University and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. NORC handles the interviewing, initial data preparation, and weighting. Additional data cleanup and preparation, the development of final documentation and the preparation of public-use data files are handled by CHRR.
The data collected in this survey are part of a larger effort that involves repeated interviews administered to a number of cohorts in the U. S. Many of the questions are identical or very similar to questions previously approved by OMB that have been asked in other cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS). Many of the questions in the NLSY97 also have been designed to reflect the changing nature of institutions and the different problems facing this group of young people. Those data elements of a particularly sensitive nature and those not previously collected are justified in this document.
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97)
A Survey of Persons who were Ages 12 to 16 on December 31, 1996
This statement covers the main fielding of round 10 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) and the NLSY97 pretest for round 11. The NLSY97 is a nationally representative sample of persons who were ages 12 to 16 on December 31, 1996. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) contracts with the Center for Human Resource Research (CHRR) at The Ohio State University and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to interview these youths on a yearly basis to study how young people make the transition from full-time schooling to the establishment of their families and careers. The longitudinal focus of this survey requires information to be collected about the same individuals over many years in order to trace their education, training, work experience, fertility, income, and program participation.
The mission of the Department of Labor (DOL) is, among other things, to promote the development of the U.S. labor force and the efficiency of the U.S. labor market. The BLS contributes to this mission by gathering information about the labor force and labor market and disseminating it to policy makers and the public so that participants in those markets can make more informed and, thus more efficient, choices. The charge to the BLS to collect data related to the labor force is extremely broad, as reflected in Title 29 USC Section 1:
“The general design and duties of the Bureau of Labor Statistics shall be to acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with labor, in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and especially upon its relation to capital, the hours of labor, the earnings of laboring men and women, and the means of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and moral prosperity.”
The collection of these data contributes to the BLS mission by aiding in the understanding of labor market outcomes faced by individuals in the early stages of career and family development. See Attachment 1 for Title 29 USC Sections 1 and 2.
The major purpose of the data collection is to examine the transition from school to the labor market and into adulthood. The study relates each respondent’s educational, family, and community background to his or her success in finding a job and establishing a career. During round 1, the study included a testing component sponsored by the Department of Defense that assessed the aptitude and achievement of the youths in the study so that these factors can be related to career outcomes. This study, begun when most participants were in middle school or high school, has followed them as they began college and jobs. Continued yearly interviews will allow researchers and policymakers to continue examining the transition from school to work. This study will help researchers and policymakers to identify the antecedents and causes for difficulties some youths experience in making the school-to-work transition. By comparing these data to similar data from previous NLS cohorts, researchers and policymakers will be able to identify and understand some of the dynamics of the labor market and whether and how the experiences of this cohort of young people differ from those of earlier cohorts.
The NLSY97 has several characteristics that distinguish it from other data sources and make it uniquely capable of meeting the goals described above. The first of these is the breadth and depth of the types of information that are being collected. It has become increasingly evident in recent years that a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of labor force activity requires a theoretical framework that draws on several disciplines, particularly economics, sociology, and psychology. For example, the exploration of the determinants and consequences of the labor force behavior and experience of this cohort requires information about (1) the individual’s family background and ongoing demographic experiences; (2) the character of all aspects of the environment with which the individual interacts; (3) human capital inputs such as formal schooling and training; (4) a complete record of the individual’s work experiences; (5) the behaviors, attitudes, and experiences of closely related family members, including spouses and children; and (6) a variety of social psychological measures, including attitudes toward specific and general work situations, personal feelings about the future, and perceptions of how much control one has over one’s environment.
A second major advantage of the NLSY97 is its longitudinal design. This design permits investigations of labor market dynamics that would not be possible with one-time surveys and allows directions of causation to be established with much greater confidence than cross-sectional analyses permit. Also, the considerable geographic and environment information available for each respondent for each survey year permits a more careful examination of the impact that area employment and unemployment considerations have on the employment, education, and family experiences of this cohort and their families.
Third, the supplemental samples of blacks and Hispanics makes possible more sophisticated examinations of human capital creation programs than previously have been possible. Post-program experience of “treatment” groups can be compared with that of groups matched not only for pre-program experience and such conventional measures as educational attainment, but also for psychological characteristics that have rarely been available in previous studies.
The NLSY97 is part of a broader group of surveys that are known as the BLS National Longitudinal Surveys program. In 1966, the first interviews were administered to persons representing two cohorts, Older Men ages 45-59 in 1966 and Young Men ages 14-24 in 1966. The sample of Mature Women ages 30-44 in 1967 was first interviewed in 1967. The last of the original four cohorts was the Young Women, who were ages 14-24 when first interviewed in 1968. The survey of Young Men was discontinued after the 1981 interview, and the last survey of the Older Men was conducted in 1990. Both cohorts of women were regularly interviewed through 2003. In 1979, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), which includes persons who were ages 14–21 on December 31, 1978, began. The NLSY79 was conducted yearly from 1979 to 1994 and has been conducted every two years since 1994. As mentioned above, one of the purposes of this data collection is to compare how well the nation is able to incorporate youths into the labor market. These earlier surveys provide comparable data for the NLSY97.
The National Longitudinal Surveys are used by BLS and other government agencies to examine a wide range of labor market issues. The most recent BLS news releases that examines NLSY97 data was published on February 24, 2006, and is available online at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/nlsyth.pdf. In addition to BLS publications, analyses have been conducted in recent years by other agencies of the Executive Branch, the Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office. The surveys also are used extensively by researchers in a variety of academic fields. A comprehensive bibliography of journal articles, dissertations, and other research that have examined data from all National Longitudinal Surveys cohorts is available at http://www.nlsbibliography.org/.
More information about survey applications is provided in Attachment 2.
CHRR and NORC have led the industry in survey automation and continue to use state-of-the-art methods for the NLSY97. This includes the continued use of computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) for the survey. For sensitive questions, such as those about drug or alcohol use, the NLSY97 uses an audio computer assisted self-interview (ACASI) that allows the respondent to see the questions on the screen and listen to them through earphones and record the answers on the keyboard. This method helps to make the respondent more comfortable with these questions and encourages more truthful and complete responses. CAPI interviews reduce respondent burden and produce data that can be prepared for release and analysis faster and more accurately than is the case with pencil-and-paper interviews. Mode experiments on another NLS cohort showed that the same interview took 10 percent less time to administer using a computer.
We do not know of a national longitudinal survey that samples this age bracket and explores an equivalent breadth of substantive topics including labor market status and characteristics of jobs, education, training, aptitudes, health, fertility, marital history, income and assets, participation in government programs, attitudes, sexual activity, criminal and delinquent behavior, household environment, and military experiences. Data collection for the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is less frequent and addresses physical and social health-related behaviors rather than focusing on labor market experiences. The studies sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics do not include the birth cohorts 1980 through 1984. The Children of the NLSY79, also part of the NLS program, spans the NLSY97 age range and touches on many of the same subjects but does not yield nationally representative estimates for these birth cohorts. Further, the NLSY97 is a valuable part of the NLS program as a whole, and other surveys would not permit the kinds of cross-cohort analyses that are possible using the various cohorts of the NLS program.
The repeated collection of NLSY97 information permits consideration of employment, education, and family issues in ways not possible with any other available data set. The combination of (1) longitudinal data covering the time from adolescence; (2) a focus on youths and young adults; (3) national representation; (4) large minority samples; and (5) detailed availability of education, employment and training, demographic, health, child outcome, and social-psychological variables make this data set and its utility for social science policy research on youth issues unique.
The NLSY97 is a survey of individuals in household and family units and therefore does not involve small organizations.
BLS believes that annual interviews are the lowest frequency that can be conducted at this stage of respondents’ lives without seriously sacrificing data quality. The core questions of the NLSY97 focus on labor force behavior, training, and education. It is very difficult to reconstruct behavior retrospectively in the pattern of being with a job and at work or not at work, being unemployed, and being out of the labor force, and relating those different labor force states to experiences with schooling and training programs. The evaluation of schooling and training as they relate to labor force behavior depends upon having an accurate temporal record of these activities. Less frequent data collection can lead to such crucial errors as whether a particular job began before or after a training program. This is the single most important reason BLS strives to maintain yearly interviews with these young adults, who on average have frequent transitions in employment, income and earnings, schooling, training, and family and household structure. Historic dates relating to these transitions are difficult to reconstruct when one focuses on events earlier than the recent past. For those who are employed, retrospective information on wages, detailed occupations, job satisfaction, or other employment-related characteristics cannot be recalled easily. If these data are not collected, the ability of BLS to provide information on schooling and employment transitions will be severely compromised.
Information about the vocational aptitudes of the NLSY97 sample will enable BLS to map current trends and the effect of these variables on labor market attachment in the United States; excellent scales are available in the round 1 collection of Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) data from which new national norms have been created. No other survey has this depth of information, and a comprehensive longitudinal record will support high quality research into the dynamics of the school-to-work transition. Less frequent data collection would impede the ability of researchers and policymakers to exploit these data.
As with employment-related information, data about a respondent’s education and training history are also extremely difficult to recall retrospectively. Completion dates of training and education programs are subject to memory biases. Thus, causal analyses that require a sequencing of education, training, and work experiences cannot be easily or accurately accomplished with data collected retrospectively with a long recall period. Not only are completion dates of educational and training experiences frequently difficult to recall, but there is evidence that misreporting of program completion is not unusual. For younger respondents, such as those in the NLSY97, events come rapidly and recall can be more problematic. Less frequent data collection would increase the risk of schooling and training experiences becoming confused with one another.
The precise timing and dating of demographic, socio-economic, and employment-related events, so crucial to most labor force analysis, is in most instances impossible to reconstruct accurately through retrospective data collection that extends very far into the past. For example, there is evidence that dates of events of fundamental importance such as marriage and birth histories are subject to considerable error at the disaggregated level when collected retrospectively. Some respondents even have difficulty recalling when their marriages began or ended. Also, accurate information about household structure, how it changes over time, and how this relates to changes in family income and labor force dynamics is difficult to reconstruct retrospectively, as is the information on the health and related behaviors of the respondents, their spouses, and their children.
Finally, it is important to emphasize that information of a subjective nature can be reported accurately only when it is collected as contemporaneously as possible. Recollection of attitudes may be colored by subsequent experiences or reflect a rationalization of subsequent successes or failures. Attitudes as widely diverse as one’s ideas about women’s roles or how one describes one’s health as of an earlier period can be recollected inaccurately, even when respondents are trying to be as honest as they can. In addition, the further in the past one tries to recall events, objective or subjective, the greater the likelihood of faulty recall. The recall of events or attitudes is often biased either by a tendency to associate the event with major life cycle changes (that may or may not be in temporal proximity to what one is trying to recall) or to move the event into the more recent past.
None of the listed special circumstances apply.
No comments were received as a result of the Federal Register notice published in Volume 71, No. 114 on June 14, 2006.
There have been numerous consultations regarding the NLSY97. In 1988, the National Science Foundation sponsored a conference to consider the future of the NLS. This conference consisted of representatives from a variety of academic, government and non-profit research and policy organizations. The participants endorsed the notion of conducting a new youth survey. The NLSY97 incorporates many of the major recommendations that came out of that conference.
Individuals consulted in federal agencies other than BLS regarding the content of the NLSY97 include:
Dr. Christine Bachrach
Chief, Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
6100 Executive Blvd. Room 8B13
Bethesda, MD 20892
Sharon Miller
U.S. Department of Education
Office of Vocational and Adult Education
Potomac Center Plaza
550 12th St SW
Washington, DC 20065
David Goodwin
U.S. Department of Education
Planning and Evaluation Service
400 Maryland Ave., SW
Washington, D.C. 20202
Marsha Silverberg
U.S. Department of Education
Planning and Evaluation Service
400 Maryland Ave., SW
Washington, D.C. 20202
Barbara Allen-Hagen
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
810 7th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20531
The NLS program also has a technical review committee that provides advice on interview content and long-term objectives. That group meets twice each year. Table 1 below shows the current members of that committee.
Table 1. National Longitudinal Surveys Technical Review Committee (2006)
David Autor Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Economics 50 Memorial Drive, E52-371 Cambridge, MA 02142 Email: [email protected] Phone: 617-258-7698 |
Janet Currie Professor, Department of Economics Columbia University Room 1038 IAB 420 West 118th Street New York, NY 10027 Email: [email protected] Phone: 212-854-4520 |
Paula England Department of Sociology Building 120, Serra Mall Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-2047 Email: [email protected] Phone: 650-723-4912 |
Jeff Grogger Harris School of Public Policy University of Chicago Suite 139 1155 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 773-834-0973 |
Arie Kapteyn Senior Economist RAND 1776
Main Street Email: [email protected] Phone: 310-393-0411 x7973 |
Annamaria Lusardi Dartmouth University Economics Department 301 Rockefeller Hall Hanover, NH 03755 Email: [email protected] Phone: 603-646-2099 |
Derek Neal Professor and Chair Department of Economics University of Chicago 1126 E. 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Email: [email protected] Phone: 773-702-8166 |
Seth Sanders Department of Economics University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Email: [email protected] Phone: 301-405-3497 |
Nathaniel Schenker National Center for Health Statistics 3311 Toledo Road Hyattsville, MD 20782 Email: [email protected] Phone: (301) 458-4483 |
Chris Taber Professor of Economics Northwestern University 302 Arthur Andersen Hall 2001 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208-2600 Email: [email protected] Phone: 847-491-8229 |
Bruce Western Professor, Department of Sociology Wallace Hall Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 Email: [email protected] Phone: (609) 258-2445 |
Robert Willis Institute for Social Research University of Michigan 426 Thompson St. Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248 Email: [email protected] Phone: (734) 936-7261 |
The NLSY97 is a long-term study in which the same subjects are interviewed annually. For that reason, respondents in all prior rounds have been offered financial and in-kind incentives as a means of securing their long-term cooperation. For round 9, OMB approved a request from BLS to offer $20 in cash to all respondents. In addition, OMB permitted BLS to conduct an experiment in which a randomly selected sample of respondents who lived in one of seven high-wage metropolitan areas would receive a $10 gift card to their choice among several national store chains. OMB also permitted BLS to pay $10 extra per missed round to prior-round nonrespondents who resumed their participation in round 9, with a cap of $30 extra. This amount would be in addition to the base incentive of $20. Respondents in round 9 who were eligible to receive both the supplemental incentive for missing prior rounds and the gift card received only the missed-round supplement.
For round 10, BLS proposes to offer all respondents a base incentive of $30. BLS also again proposes to pay $10 extra per missed round to prior-round nonrespondents who resume their participation in round 10, with a cap of $30 extra. BLS intends to conduct an experiment during round 10 to assess the effectiveness of personalized in-kind gifts for respondents. BLS will provide OMB with more specific information about the design of the proposed experiment shortly after Round 10 fielding begins.
For the round 10 pretest, OMB recently approved a request from BLS to offer sample members a $50 cash incentive to participate. BLS again proposes to offer sample members $50 to participate in the round 11 pretest.
Commissioner’s Order 3-04, “Confidential Nature of BLS Records,” explains the BLS policy on respondent confidentiality. Commissioner’s Order 3-04 is shown in Attachment 3. In conformance with the Privacy Act of 1974, the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 (CIPSEA), and other Federal laws and regulations, it is the policy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics that: “Individually identifiable data collected or maintained by, or under the auspices of, the BLS for exclusively statistical purposes and under a pledge of confidentiality shall be treated in a manner that will ensure that the data will be used only for statistical purposes and will be accessible only to authorized persons.” CIPSEA safeguards the confidentiality of individually identifiable information acquired under a pledge of confidentiality by controlling access to, and uses made of, such information. CIPSEA includes fines and penalties for any knowing and willful disclosure of individually identifiable information by an officer, employee, or agent of the BLS. CIPSEA is shown Attachment 4.
By signing a BLS Agency Agreement, all authorized agents employed by the BLS contractors at The Ohio State University Center for Human Resource Research and at the National Opinion Research Center have pledged to comply with the Privacy Act, CIPSEA, other applicable federal laws, and the BLS confidentiality policy. Respondents will be provided a copy of the questions and answers about uses of the data, confidentiality, and burden shown in Attachment 5. These questions and answers will appear on the back of the letter that respondents will receive in advance of the round 10 interviews. Advance letters for round 10 are still being drafted, but Attachment 6 shows the combination advance letter and locating card that was used in round 9.
CHRR and NORC have safeguards to provide for the security of NLS data and the protection of the privacy of individuals in the sampled cohorts. These measures are used for the NLSY97 as well as the other NLS cohorts. Safeguards for the security of data include:
1. Storage of printed survey documents in locked space at NORC.
2. Protection of computer files at CHRR and its subcontractors against access by unauthorized individuals and groups. Procedures include using passwords, high-level “handshakes” across the network, data encryption, and fragmentation of data resources. As an example of fragmentation, should someone intercept data files over the network and defeat the encryption of these files, the meaning of the data files cannot be extracted except by referencing certain cross-walk tables that are neither transmitted nor stored on the interviewers’ laptops.
3. Protection of computer files at CHRR and at NORC against access by unauthorized persons and groups. Especially sensitive files are secured via a series of passwords to restricted users. Access to files is strictly on a need-to-know basis.
Protection of the privacy of individuals is accomplished through the following steps:
1. Oral permission for the interview is obtained from all respondents, after the interviewer ensures that the respondent has been provided with a copy of the appropriate BLS confidentiality information and understands that participation is voluntary.
2. Information identifying respondents is separated from the questionnaire and placed into a non-public database. Respondents are then linked to data through identification numbers.
3. After the final interview round, respondent identifier computer files will be destroyed.
4. The public-use version of the data, available on the Internet and on CD, masks data that are of sufficient specificity that individuals could theoretically be identified through some set of unique characteristics.
5. Other data files, which include variables on respondents’ State, county, metropolitan statistical area, zip code, and census tract of residence and certain other characteristics, are available only to researchers who undergo a review process established by BLS and sign an agreement with BLS that establishes specific requirements to protect respondent confidentiality. These agreements require that any results or information obtained as a result of research using the NLS data will be published only in summary or statistical form so that individuals who participated in the study cannot be identified. These confidential data are not available on the Internet.
6. Questions of a more private nature are contained in self-administered portions of the survey so the respondents’ answers are concealed both from the interviewer and anyone in the household who might overhear the interview.
There are several broad sets of questions in the NLSY97 data-collection instruments that may be considered sensitive items. We address each of these categories separately and in greater detail below.
a.) Sexual Activity
Because puberty and the initiation of sexual activity occurred for many of the sample members during the first few survey rounds, this information has been carefully collected. Results from a number of different surveys, including early rounds of the NLSY97, indicate that a significant proportion of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 report that they are sexually active. It is vital that we continue to trace the progression of sexual activity in relation to the realization of educational and occupational goals and with respect to the promotion of good health practices. The level of sexual activity and contraceptive use are important indicators of how serious young people are about reaching higher levels of educational and occupational attainment, and there should be significant congruence between anticipated life goals, sexual activity, and its associated outcomes.
The survey will continue to collect information on the number of times male respondents have made a woman pregnant, as well as information on the live births from those pregnancies. Few studies have examined the linkages between early childbearing for men and subsequent education and employment outcomes in relation to family commitments. However, there is now some research indicating a modest connection between male labor supply and how many children they have. In an age where social responsibility is a salient public issue, longitudinal collection of data on the number of children men have fathered is essential to guarantee adequate representation of their children. At a minimum, collection of information about the offspring of male respondents is necessary for linking economic outlays of child support or lack of outlays of child support with potential determinants of both men’s and women’s labor supply behavior. Cross-sectional estimates of childbearing data for men can underestimate the number of children ever born to males.
Questions related to puberty, dating, sexual activity, birth control, and pregnancy outcomes (including outcomes other than live births) will be asked of all respondents in a self-administered portion of the questionnaire. Respondents will be eligible for the puberty questions only if they had not been interviewed in round 5 or later. During administration of these questionnaire segments, respondents first will be instructed how to use the computer to enter their responses. They also will be instructed on the use of the audio headset that will allow them to hear a question read to them at the same time that the question text appears on the screen. Question response sets will also be audio as well as visual. The audio portion will help to improve response in situations where literacy or visual impairment is a problem. During self-administration, the computer screen is not visible to the interviewer and the program automatically directs the respondent through the appropriate universe of questions. Upon ending the self-administered section, the program automatically saves the data and the interview reverts back to the next interviewer-administered module; the self-administered section cannot be re-entered during the interview after the respondent exits the section by entering a password. The respondent will be reassured by the interviewer that his or her responses, once entered into the computer, are not available for retrieval by non-survey personnel. There is evidence that using an audio computer-assisted self-interview approach favorably affects data quality (O’Reilly, J.; Hubbard, M., Lessler, J., and Biemer, P., 1992; Johnston, J. and Walton, C., 1992; Kinsey, S., Thornberry, J., Carson, C., and Duffer, A., 1995; Tourangeau, R. and Smith, T., 1995). No respondent will be pressured to answer the questions, and interviewers will be instructed to accept refusals without attempting to encourage response. Previous experience indicates that respondents usually recognize the importance of these questions, and field interviewers generally have not reported difficulties with these types of questions.
b.) Anti-Social Behavior
The educational and labor force trajectory of individuals is strongly affected by their involvement in delinquent and risk-taking behaviors, criminal activity, and alcohol and drug use. There is widespread interest in collecting data on such behaviors. The challenge, of course, is to obtain accurate information on activities that are socially unacceptable or even illegal. Questions on these activities are asked in the self-administered portions of the NLSY97.
Crime and delinquency. The longitudinal collection of self-reported criminal behavior permits examination of the effects of these deviant behaviors on employment activity. This includes the ability to study whether there is a sustained pattern of criminal activities through the life cycle and how these patterns are related to employment difficulties. An additional area of study is the ways in which deviant behaviors may be causally associated with a disposition towards other aberrant behavior such as excessive alcohol and drug use. Use of both self-reports of behavior and of official disciplinary and court actions allows the NLSY97 to separate the effects of criminal activity that lead to an arrest or other legal action versus criminal activity that remains unpunished.
The design of the crime and delinquency module for the NLSY97 has taken great care to correct weaknesses contained in other surveys’ instruments. As a result, unlike other surveys, the NLSY97 elicits information on a wider scope of activities and experiences related to crime. This includes questions concerning the type and frequency of criminal activity as well as self-reports about convictions, time served, and income received as a result of criminal activity. The NLSY97 pays particular attention to involvement in gang activities and to the use of and access to firearms.
The survey also collects information on perceptions of the risk involved in particular criminal activities and the degree to which respondents have easy access to information useful for committing crimes. To the extent that many antecedents to criminal activity relate to early experience as victims of crime, the NLSY97 also collects information on direct experience with crime, either as a personal victim or through knowledge of significant others as victims of crime. Finally, the NLSY97 also collects information on criminal convictions of the respondents parents and on time served in the criminal justice system.
Substance use. To quote a report based on data from the 1990 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), “Patterns of tobacco, alcohol and other drug use usually are established during youth, often persist into adulthood, contribute substantially to the leading causes of mortality and morbidity, and are associated with lower educational achievement and school dropout.” It is important that the NLSY97 continue to collect this information because of the potential impact of substance use on education and employment outcomes.
c.) Religion
The survey has included questions about religious identification and attendance in most rounds. The round 10 survey will include questions about attitudes regarding religion. The round 10 survey will continue to collect religious affiliation of new household members and spouses/partners not previously reported. Religion and spirituality are an important part of life for a majority of Americans. Belief systems affect a wide variety of outcomes relevant to labor market participation, ranging from the type and intensity of work and career orientations, to labor force participation and other economic outcomes that influence social and economic mobility. Religious denomination and frequency of attendance at worship services also indirectly affect labor force participation through their impact on other dimensions of individual lives.
d.) Income, Assets, and Program Participation
The survey asks all respondents about their income from wages, salaries, and other income received in the last calendar year. Other income is collected using a detailed list of income sources such as self-employment income, receipt of child support, interest or dividend payments, or income from rental properties. Respondents also are asked about their participation in government programs. Included are specific questions (number of spells, duration of each spell, amount of benefit, and so forth) regarding a number of government assistance programs such as Unemployment Compensation, AFDC/TANF/ADC, and food stamps.
In addition to income, respondents are asked about current asset holdings. Questions include the market value of any residence or business, whether or not the respondent paid property taxes in the previous year, the average amount spent on utilities per month, and the amount owed on motor vehicles. Other questions ask about the respondent’s current checking/savings account balances, the value of various assets such as stocks or CDs, and the amount of any loans of at least $200 that the respondent received in the last calendar year. To reduce respondent burden, the asset questions are not asked of each respondent in every round. These questions are asked in the first interview after the respondent turns 18, the first interview after the respondent turns 20, and the first interview after the respondent turns 25. Because asset accumulation is slow at this young age, this periodic collection is sufficient to capture changes in asset holdings.
e.) Political Participation
In round 10, the survey will ask respondents about whether they were registered to vote and whether they voted in the Congressional election in November 2006. In addition to questions on voting participation, the survey will include a single question on how closely the respondent follows government and public affairs. These questions previously were asked in round 8, following the 2004 Congressional and Presidential elections. BLS plans to repeat this political participation module every two years to capture information about respondents’ voting behavior in all congressional and presidential elections over the life cycle. BLS believes that responses to the political participation module will represent the best available longitudinal record of voting behavior for any group of Americans. Coupled with the rich information available on respondents’ employment, education, and family history, the political participation data will represent a significant research opportunity for social scientists interested in explaining why people vote and in encouraging fuller participation in our democratic society.
Respondents are free to refuse to answer any survey question, including the sensitive questions described above. Our experience has been that participants recognize the importance of these questions and only very rarely refuse to answer.
The round 10 field effort will seek to interview each respondent identified in the 1997 sample-selection effort. NORC will attempt to contact approximately 8,900 sample members who are not known to be deceased. BLS expects that NORC will complete interviews with approximately 7,500 of those sample members. Following the round 10 field effort, there also will be a pretest for round 11 involving approximately 200 pretest sample members who also were pretest sample members in all prior rounds. The content of the interviews will be very similar to the interviews in rounds 8 and 9. Based upon interview length in past rounds, we estimate each interview (pretest and main) will require about one hour. We will conduct careful timings of the interviews to verify that their actual length is close to the expected length.
There will be variability in interview length across respondents. For example, the core of the interview covers schooling and early labor market experience. Naturally, respondents vary in the number of jobs they have held, the number of schools they have attended, and their experiences both at school and at work. Our aim is to be comprehensive in the data we collect, and this leads to variation in the time required for the respondent to remember and relate the necessary information to the interviewer. In addition, the audio self-administered component of the interview is, in some cases, quite engaging, and the youths sometimes take longer to complete the task than one might expect. For these reasons, our timing estimate is more accurate on average than for each individual case.
Finally, the estimated burden includes an allowance for attrition that takes place during the course of longitudinal surveys. To minimize the effects of attrition, NORC will seek to complete interviews with living respondents from round 1 regardless of whether the sample member completed an interview in intervening rounds.
Household burden will vary with the number of in-scope sample members present, so households with three sample members may require three hours, and so forth. Although more than 1,800 households included multiple respondents at the time of the initial interview, by round 10 many respondents will have established their own households, and very few multiple respondent households remain. We are sensitive to the fact that the interviews in households with several sample members theoretically can pose interviewing problems, but that has not been our experience in previous rounds.
During the field period, NORC conducts validation interviews with about 10 percent of respondents to ascertain whether the interview took place as the interviewer reported and to assess the data quality of selected questionnaire items. These validation interviews average about six minutes each and are conducted only for the main fielding and not the pretest.
Tables 2 and 3 provide additional details on the estimated respondent burden in round 10 and in the pretest for round 11.
Form |
Total Respondents |
Frequency |
Total Responses |
Average Time per Response |
Estimated Total Burden |
Main NLSY97 |
7,500 |
Annually |
7,500 |
60 minutes |
7,500 hours |
Validation interview |
750 |
Annually |
750 |
6 minutes |
75 hours |
TOTALS* |
7,500 |
— |
8,250 |
— |
7,575 hours |
* The difference between the total number of respondents and the total number of responses reflects the fact that about 750 respondents will be interviewed twice, once in the main survey and a second time in the 6-minute validation interview.
Form |
Total Respondents |
Frequency |
Total Responses |
Average Time per Response |
Estimated Total Burden |
NLSY97 Pretest
|
200 |
Annually |
200 |
60 minutes |
200 hours |
Respondents for this survey will not incur any capital and start-up costs; respondents will not incur any operation and maintenance or purchase of service costs.
The total estimated cost of the round 10 survey is $8,697,000. This cost includes funding for instrument development, pretest and main data collection; cleaning and preparation of the public-use and restricted-access data files; and services to users of the data files.
The burden of 7,775 hours requested for fiscal year 2007 (for round 10 of the survey) is 236 hours lower than the previously approved burden of 8,011 hours each year for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. The reduction reflects revised expectations of the response rate.
The following is the planned schedule for the data collection for round 10.
Questionnaire Development September 2005 – April 2006
Pre-field Materials Development July 2006 – September 2006 (main)
Data Collection October 2006 – May 2007 (main)
Data Processing May 2007 – September 2008
Release of Public-Use Data Files June 2008 for main file and September 2008 for event history file
Publication of BLS News Release February 2009
Does not apply.
We do not have any exceptions in Item 19, “Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions,” of OMB form 83-I.
This section summarizes the primary features of the sampling and statistical methods used to collect data and produce estimates for the NLSY97. Additional technical details are provided in the NLSY97 Technical Sampling Report, available online at http://www.nlsinfo.org/preview.php?filename=nlsy97techsamprpt.pdf.
Additional information about statistical methods and survey procedures is available in the NLSY97 User’s Guide at:
http://www.nlsinfo.org/nlsy97/docs/97HTML00/97guide/toc.htm
The initial sample was selected to represent (after appropriate weighting) the total U.S. population (including military personnel) 12 to 16 years of age on December 31, 1996. The sample selection procedure included an overrepresentation of blacks and Hispanics to facilitate statistically reliable analyses of these racial and ethnic groups. Appropriate weights are developed after each round so that the sample components can be combined to aggregate to the overall U.S. population of the same ages. Weights are needed to adjust for differences in selection probabilities, subgroup differences in participation rates, random fluctuations from known population totals, and survey undercoverage. Computation of the weights begins with the base weight and then adjusts for household screener nonresponse, sub-sampling, individual nonresponse, and post-stratification of the nonresponse-adjusted weights. The number of sample cases in 1997, the first round, was 8,984. Retention rate information for subsequent rounds is shown in the table below. BLS anticipates approximately the same retention rate in round 10 that we attained in round 9. Only sample members who completed an interview in round 1 are considered in-scope for subsequent rounds. Even if NORC is unable to complete an interview for an in-scope sample member in one round, they attempt to complete an interview with that sample member in each subsequent round. The interview schedule is designed to pick up crucial information that was not collected in the missed interviews.
The schedule of past survey rounds, the sample retention rates, and the anticipated schedule for round 10 are shown in Table 4.
Round |
Months conducted |
Total respondents |
Retention rate |
Number of deceased sample members |
Retention rate excluding the deceased |
1 |
February–October
1997 |
8,984 |
— |
— |
— |
2 |
October 1998–April 1999 |
8,386 |
93.3 |
7 |
93.4 |
3 |
October 1999–April 2000 |
8,209 |
91.4 |
16 |
91.5 |
4 |
November 2000–May 2001 |
8,081 |
89.9 |
15 |
90.1 |
5 |
November 2001–May 2002 |
7,883 |
87.7 |
25 |
88.0 |
6 |
November 2002–May 2003 |
7,898 |
87.9 |
30 |
88.2 |
7 |
November 2003–July 2004 |
7,756 |
86.3 |
37 |
86.7 |
8 |
November 2004–July 2005 |
7,505 |
83.5 |
45 |
84.0 |
9 |
October 2005–June 20061 |
7,338 |
81.7 |
62 |
82.2 |
10 |
October 2006–May 20072 |
— |
— |
— |
— |
Note: The retention rate is defined as the percentage of base year respondents who were interviewed in a given survey year.
1 Preliminary.
2 Planned.
The NLSY97 includes personal interviews with all living round 1 respondents, regardless of whether they subsequently become institutionalized, join the military, or move out of the United States. We employ a thorough and comprehensive strategy to contact and interview sample members. At each interview, detailed information is gathered about relatives and friends who could assist NORC field staff in locating respondents if they cannot readily be found in a subsequent survey round. Every effort is made to locate respondents. Interviewers are encouraged to attempt to contact respondents until they reach them. There is no arbitrary limit on the number of call-backs.
Preceding the data collection, the NORC interviewers are carefully trained, with particular emphasis placed on resolving sensitive issues that may have appeared in the pretest and in prior rounds. Most of the NORC interviewers have lengthy experience in the field from having participated in earlier NLSY97 rounds as well as from involvement with the NLSY79 and other NORC surveys. All new recruits are given one day of personal training on general interviewing techniques, followed by three days of personal training on the questionnaire and field procedures. Experienced interviewers receive self-study training consisting of over 8 hours on specially designed materials requiring study of the questionnaire and procedural specifications, with exercises on new or difficult sections and procedures.
A 10-percent sample of each interviewer’s completed cases is randomly selected for validation. A short interview is administered by telephone from the central office to all respondents in the validation sample. Respondents without phones are sent a similar self-administered mail-out questionnaire. Quality assurance procedures also cover mailing, coding, receipt of materials, and other survey procedures.
Field interviewers are supervised by NORC Field Managers and their associates. NORC has divided the U.S. into 12 regions, each supervised by a Field Manager who is responsible for staffing and for the quality of field work in that region. A ratio of 1 supervisor to 15 interviewers is the standard arrangement. Field Managers are, in turn, supervised by one of the two Field Project Managers.
The interview content is prepared by professional staff at BLS, CHRR, and NORC. When new materials are incorporated into the schedule, special assistance is generally sought from appropriate experts in the specific substantive area.
Because sample selection took place in 1997 in preparation for the baseline interview, sample composition will remain unchanged.
A number of the procedures that are used to maximize response rate already have been discussed in items 1 and 2 above. The other component of missing data is item nonresponse. Nonresponse is comprised of respondents refusing to answer or not knowing the answer to a question. Almost all items in the NLSY97 have low levels of nonresponse. For example, in prior rounds there was virtually no item nonresponse for basic questions like the type of residence respondents lived in (YHHI-4400) or the highest grade of school respondents had ever attended (YSCH-2857).
Cognitively harder questions like, “How many hours did you work per week?” (YEMP-23901) have low levels of nonresponse. In the hours per week example, 6 individuals out of 2,998 (0.2%) did not answer the question in round 7.
Sensitive questions have the highest nonresponse. Table 5 presents examples of round 6 questionnaire items that are most sensitive or cognitively difficult. Even very personal questions about sex have low rates of nonresponse. The top two rows of the table show that the vast majority of respondents (96.8-98.2%) were willing and able to answer the question, “Did you ever have sexual intercourse?” The third row shows that only 0.6% of respondents did not respond to the question on marijuana usage since the last interview. The fourth row shows that very few respondents (0.3%) did not answer whether they had carried a handgun since the last interview.
Lastly, almost all respondents (0.5% nonresponse rate) were willing to reveal whether they had earned money from a job in the past year, but many did not know or refused to disclose exactly how much they had earned (26% nonresponse rate). Because high nonresponse rates were expected for the income amount question, individuals who did not provide an exact answer were asked to estimate their income from a set of predetermined ranges. Including these range answers reduces nonresponse by 1,454 cases, effectively lowering the total nonresponse rate for this question from 26% to 1.2%.
Q Name |
Question |
Number Asked |
Number Refused |
Number Don’t Know |
% Nonresponse |
YSAQ2-299 |
Ever Have Sexual Intercourse?1 |
1689 |
30 |
1 |
1.8% |
YSAQ2-299B |
Have Sex Since Date of Last Interview?2 |
2349 |
71 |
3 |
3.2% |
YSAQ-370C |
Use Marijuana Since Date of Last Interview? |
7898 |
43 |
2 |
0.6% |
YSAQ-380 |
Carry a Handgun Since Date of Last Interview? |
7897 |
26 |
1 |
0.3% |
YINC-1400 |
Receive Work Income in 2001? |
7898 |
8 |
34 |
0.5% |
YINC-1700 |
How Much Income from All Jobs in 2001? |
5865 |
40 |
1486 |
26.0% |
YINC-1800 |
Estimated Income from All Jobs in 2001?3 |
1526 |
23 |
49 |
4.7% |
1 Asked of respondents who have never reported having sexual intercourse in a previous interview and who do not report a spouse or partner in the household.
2 Asked of respondents who have previously reported having sexual intercourse who do not report a spouse or partner in the household.
3 Asked of respondents who were unable or unwilling to answer the previous question (YINC-1700).
Round 10 will include an experimental questionnaire section to improve respondents’ engagement with the NLSY97. The section is called “Tell Us What You Think” and is designed to improve data quality and response rates. The section includes a four-mode experiment with end-of-interview questions. We wish to investigate whether different types of questions might imbue respondents with different feelings toward the NLSY97 interview and therefore their survey participation. In general, we hypothesize that subjective items, personal items, and unstructured items all increase respondent engagement and may be more enjoyable for respondents to answer. All of the items in the proposed modes are subjective (objective items dominate the remainder of the NLSY97 interview), but we vary the personal or impersonal and structured or unstructured characteristics in the proposed questions.
To select the sample, we will assign every NLSY97 sample member a cooperativeness score. The score will be based on rounds completed (fewer rounds = less cooperative), mode of most recent interview (phone = less cooperative), date of most recent interview (later in the field period = less cooperative), and efforts required at cooperation in the last three rounds (more effort = less cooperative). Stratifying by cooperativeness, we will assign respondents randomly to each of the four modes.
The first mode asks personal, subjective items in a structured interview format. These questions come from the General Social Survey, where they were asked in various combinations in 1982, 1988, 1996, and 1998. The questions have been used to study personal priorities, as inputs into models studying household dynamics and division of labor, and to characterize personal traits. See questions YTEL-1 to YTEL-4 in the round 10 questionnaire.
The second mode asks impersonal, subjective items also in a structured interview format. These questions were asked in the 1987 General Social Survey and other national Federally funded surveys. The questions are of interest to sociologists in understanding societal priorities and to political scientists investigating attitudes toward government. See questions YTEL-11 A through J in the round 10 questionnaire.
The third mode asks personal questions of a more conversational nature. They have been written specifically for administration in the NLSY97 questionnaire. NORC has conducted informal cognitive testing of these questions with a variety of individuals in the NLSY97 age group, as well as older individuals who are familiar with the content of the NLSY97 questionnaire. The fixed-coded item may be of interest to psychologists studying coping mechanisms and resilience. The open-ended items may assist the NLSY97 design committee in identifying additional topics for future interviews. See questions YTEL-21 and YTEL-22 in the round 10 questionnaire.
The final quarter of respondents will not answer any attitudinal items at the close of the interview.
In Round 10, the experiment will be evaluated using an Interviewer Remarks question about the respondent’s engagement with this section and two questions in the validation re-interview questionnaire asking about the respondent’s interest in the interview. The experiment will be evaluated further in Round 11 for each experimental mode based on response rates, data quality (for example, item nonresponse), and cooperativeness (as measured by returned phone calls, broken appointments, and attempts required to finalize the case).
Most questionnaire sections and procedures have undergone expert review and testing by survey methodologists to ensure validity and reliability. Some testing and review has been conducted by BLS or its contractors. In other cases, specific questions or questionnaire sections have been borrowed from other surveys that have conducted validity and reliability testing.
A comprehensive pretest is carried out approximately four months preceding each round of the main NLSY97 to test survey procedures and questions. This pretest includes a heterogeneous sample of about 200 respondents of various racial, ethnic, geographic, and socio-economic backgrounds. On the basis of this pretest, the various questionnaire items, particularly those being asked for the first time, are evaluated with respect to question sensitivity and validity. When serious problems are revealed during the pretest, the problematic questions are deleted from the main NLSY97 survey instrument.
A list of the changes to the NLSY97 questionnaire from rounds 9 to 10 is shown in Attachment 7.
Dr. Kirk Wolter
NORC
1155 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
(312) 753-7500
The sample design was conducted by NORC, which continues the interviewing fieldwork.
The Code of the Laws
of the United States of
America
Title 29 - Labor
bureau of labor statistics
§1. Design and duties of bureau generally
The general design and duties of the Bureau of Labor Statistics shall be to acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with labor, in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and especially upon its relation to capital, the hours of labor, the earnings of laboring men and women, and the means of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and moral prosperity. (June 13, 1899, c389, § 1, 25 Stat. 182.)
§2. Collection, collation, and reports of labor statistics
The
Bureau of Labor Statistics, under the direction of the Secretary of
Labor, shall collect, collate, and report at least once each year, or
oftener if necessary, full and complete statistics of the conditions
of labor and the products and distribution of the products of the
same, and to this end said Secretary shall have power to employ any
or either of the bureaus provided for his department and to rearrange
such statistical work, and to distribute or consolidate the same as
may be deemed desirable in the public interests; and said Secretary
shall also have authority to call upon other departments of the
Government for statistical data and results obtained by them; and
said Secretary of Labor may collate, arrange, and publish such
statistical information so obtained in such manner as to him may seem
wise.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics shall also collect, collate, report, and publish at least once each month full and complete statistics of the volume of and changes in employment, as indicated by the number of persons employed, the total wages paid, and the total hours of employment, in the service of the Federal Government, the States and political subdivisions thereof, and in the following industries and their principal branches: (1) Manufacturing; (2) mining, quarrying, and crude petroleum production; (3) building construction; (4) agriculture and lumbering; (5) transportation, communication, and other public utilities; (6) the retail and wholesale trades; and such other industries as the Secretary of Labor may deem it in the public interest to include. Such statistics shall be reported for all such industries and their principal branches throughout the United States and also by States and/or Federal reserve districts and by such smaller geographical subdivisions as the said Secretary may from time to time prescribe. The said Secretary is authorized to arrange with any Federal, State, or municipal bureau or other governmental agency for the collection of such statistics in such manner as he may deem satisfactory, and may assign special agents of the Department of Labor to any such bureau or agency to assist in such collection.
history; ancillary laws and directives
Explanatory notes:
The bracketed words are substituted for “There shall be at the seat of government a Department of Labor, the general design and duties of which shall be . . .” Act Feb. 14, 1903, c. 552 § 4, 32 Stat. 826, placed the Department of Labor in the Department of Commerce and Labor, Act Mar. 18, 1904, c. 716, 33 Stat. 136, changed the name of the Department of Labor to the Bureau of Labor. Act Mar. 4, 1913, c. 141 § 3, 37 Stat. 737, transferred the Bureau of Labor from the Department of Commerce and Labor to the Department of Labor and redesignated the Bureau as the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Transfer of functions:
1950 reorganization plan no. 6
department of labor
Section 1. Transfer of functions to the Secretary, (a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b) of this section, there are hereby transferred to the Secretary of Labor all functions of all other officers of the Department of Labor and all functions of all agencies and employees of such Department. (b) This section shall not apply to the functions vested by the Administrative Procedure Act (60 Stat. 237) [see 5 USCS §§ 551 et. seq., 701 et. seq., 3105, 3344, 5362, 7521] in hearing examiners employed by the Department of Labor.
Sec. 2. Performance of functions of Secretary. The Secretary of Labor many from time to time make sure provisions as he shall deem appropriate authorizing the performance by any other officer or by any agency or employee, of the Department of Labor of any function of the Secretary, including any function transferred to the Secretary by the provisions of this reorganization plan.
Sec. 3 Administrative Assistant Secretary. There shall be in the Department of Labor an Administrative Assistant Secretary of Labor, who shall be appointed, with the approval of the President, by the Secretary of Labor under the classified civil service, who shall perform such duties as the Secretary of Labor shall prescribe.
Sec. 4. Incidental transfers. The Secretary of Labor may from time to time effect such transfers within the Department of Labor of any of the records, property, personnel, and unexpended balances (available or to be make available) of appropriations, allocations, and other funds of such Department as he may deem necessary in order to carry out the provisions of this reorganization plan.
The NLSY97 is widely used by Federal, state, and local government agencies, universities, news media, foundations, and other private organizations. The broad, omnibus nature of the survey reflects the charge to the Bureau of Labor Statistics to “acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with labor, in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and especially upon its relation to capital, the hours of labor, the earnings of laboring men and women, and the means of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and moral prosperity.” (Title 29 USC, Section 1)
The NLSY97 asks respondents about their education, training, and labor force behavior. Some rounds of the survey also included questions about expectations for the future. As respondents become involved in their careers, researchers and policymakers can examine the degree to which respondents have met their expectations.
The extensive work history obtained from the survey can be used to examine some of the most important yet hard-to-answer questions about the evolution of careers in the United States. Data are available on temporary, consultant, and contract work status. In recent years this mode of work has expanded rapidly, and many have voiced concern about the impact of these employment relationships on the careers of workers. The NLSY97 can trace these relationships and measure the extent to which they lead to more stable work arrangements. Is this another form of job search, with employers following a conservative strategy to ascertain a job match? What roles do these jobs play in learning an occupation and developing job skills?
With the reports of layoffs that appear in the popular press, many labor market observers wonder how the layoff will affect long-term career prospects. If there is a large return to employer-employee specific matches, then layoffs represent a significant degradation of the stock of match-specific human capital. If rewards to experience are not employer specific, then these layoffs will have less serious impact on the earnings of persons who are laid off. The issue becomes one of the rate of return to tenure versus the rate of return to experience, and the NLSY97 will allow researchers and policymakers to examine such issues because it tracks mobility between and among employers over a long period of time and in great detail. The impact of layoffs at different stages of the career can be examined, with the scope of the answers improving as the cohort ages.
As some of the respondents in this cohort join the military, researchers and policymakers will be able to examine the extent to which military skills translate to civilian labor market earnings.
The NLSY97 yields detailed information on the progress of young adults in secondary school, GED programs, college, and graduate school and provide answers to a number of policy-related questions concerning both the causes and consequences of premature school termination and the effects of post-secondary education. The impact of these choices on early career development can now be examined.
(a) What are the consequences for high school students who withdraw without obtaining a diploma? What is the relative importance of factors such as differences in ability, motivation, and economic status of the young adults and their families? Research completed with other data suggests that, for both male and female youths, dissatisfaction with schooling is a more important reason for leaving school than employment or income-related reasons. For young women, marriage and pregnancy often are cited as reasons for leaving school prematurely, although disentangling the causality between these behaviors remains a complex, partially unanswerable question. Also, after controlling for socio-economic differences, minority groups continue to have above-average high school dropout rates.
(b) Are high school dropouts at a disadvantage compared with high school graduates in terms of earnings and occupational status as their careers develop? If so, do these differences narrow or disappear over time, or do they persist? In general, have declining labor market opportunities for semi-skilled and unskilled workers affected the relative wages for these groups? Cross-cohort comparisons between young men and women in the original NLS cohorts, the NLSY79, and the NLSY97 can directly address this important issue.
(c) The availability of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) scores for NLSY97 respondents greatly expands the utility of the interview data for measuring and tracking qualitative differences in the patterns of regular schooling in relation to outcomes later in life. Given that high schools—public and private, inner city, suburban, and rural—vary widely, detailed evaluation of the impact of specific high school curricula and programs of study is useful in these kinds of analyses. High school diplomas encompass a highly variable range of academic standards, course requirements, and learning achievements.
The presence of data on these factors makes possible more sophisticated rates-of-return models than those that rely simply on years of schooling completed. For example, by including ASVAB scores and high school diploma receipt in the same wage equations, one can get a more accurate assessment of the dual effects from high school completion and human capital development on labor market success. More complete analysis of educational progression will be possible as increasing proportions of the NLSY97 sample complete their educational programs.
(d) What is the impact of out-of-school job-related training? Does it tend to widen or narrow the differences between graduates and dropouts at the time of the first job? To what extent is work experience while attending high school complementary to post-schooling jobs? More specifically, how successful are the work-study cooperative programs both for preparing the student for jobs after graduation and for keeping him/her in school? What evidence, if any, is there that work outside school hours affects retention rates in school? What are the factors that affect the match between post-school jobs and field of study while in college? Is there a greater mismatch between school training and out-of-school employment in a loose labor market rather than a tight one? Does this affect dropout rates?
A critical area of research relates to the processes of early accommodation of youths to the labor market, the nature of the bridge between formal education and training, and the establishment of relatively stable attachments to given types of work, including experience with temporary part-time jobs while in school and the early exploration of alternatives after leaving school. The continuing high unemployment rates among youth during schooling and in the several years following its termination, as well as the high rates of job mobility during the early post-school years, suggest potentially serious social and economic problems for our society. However, little is known about the actual magnitude of this problem and its long-term implications for the individual. Issues that can be researched include the following:
(a) How have the characteristics of the high schools that young adults have attended and their own economic, social, and psychological characteristics affected their choice of school curriculum? To what extent are variations in the extent and character of youth’s employment while in high school explained by characteristics of the school and of the local labor market, parental financial status, and social psychological characteristics of the youth (including his or her attitudes toward school)?
(b) Are individuals with certain socio-economic characteristics likely to enter and be trapped in low-paying jobs in which traditional human capital variables appear to be irrelevant, or does the labor market operate so as to sort individuals out among jobs equitably in terms of their productive capabilities? What are the processes of mobility, post-school training, work experience, and modification of goals that result in youths settling into career jobs?
(c) Does unsatisfactory experience (for example, extensive unemployment) in the immediate post-school years leave “scars” that affect later labor market behavior and experience, or are these problems essentially transitory, with no lasting effects? Research on the potential “scarring” effects of unemployment has been completed for the earlier NLS cohorts. It is now possible to undertake comparable analyses for this cohort as they attain adulthood.
(d) What relationship is there, if any, between the high school experience, including work activity, and the post-school labor market activity of non-college-bound youths? Preliminary research strongly suggests that for most individuals, the school-to-work transition is fairly smooth with only minimal periods of non-employment. Subsequent research will undoubtedly focus on the question of the extent to which this success depends on the extent or type of work experience and whether the smoothness of the transition affects later labor market outcomes.
(e) How does the curriculum of students, whether vocational, college preparatory, or general, affect their later labor market success? We will be able to determine whether training programs in schools show positive impacts on later life outcomes.
The earlier National Longitudinal Surveys relied heavily on traditional economic variables to characterize the types of jobs held by respondents, for example, earnings, hours worked, occupation, and industry. These fall short of adequately measuring the variation in work environment, particularly among young adults who are typically in jobs with below-average earnings and occupational status. Questions about freelance jobs (for example, baby-sitting, mowing lawns) and self-employment in the earlier rounds of the NLSY97 helped to capture the wide variety of work experience and the informal, temporary quality of many youth jobs. As respondents age, these kinds of information make possible a much more penetrating analysis of the character of the early work experience of youth and the effects on later employment. For example, the following kinds of questions can be addressed.
(a) Are there various avenues for advancement for young adults in the labor market? For example, to what extent may increased responsibility and improvement in job content occur without being reflected in a change in the job title or a change in employer, the conventional indicators of “job change”? In addition, what is the character of the extensive job changes made by young adults? Does “job hopping” result in progressively better jobs along all of the dimensions described above, or does it simply represent a string of equally poor employment opportunities? How does the answer to this question vary depending on sex, race, ethnicity, and the socio-economic and psychological characteristics of the young adult? What is the effect of variation in the economic environment? What is the role of job-specific experience relative to general labor market experience in explaining earnings growth?
(b) What kinds of jobs do young adults consider desirable, and at what wage rates? What differences are there in this regard between those still in school and those who have ended their formal education? What is the extent of variation in this regard by sex, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status? What are the causes of job satisfaction or dissatisfaction? Does job dissatisfaction lead to job mobility? Research already completed shows that there are systematic differences in the desired characteristics of jobs at entry compared to those at mid-life, at least among the non-college population. Young adults entering the labor market are thought to be more concerned with job security, perhaps because of their tendency to be in unstable positions, while mid-life workers are more concerned with promotions. This sample is well suited for studying this evolution of attitudes. Gender differences include a greater emphasis by women than men on job significance and good interpersonal relationships.
One of the principal purposes of the NLSY97 is to examine racial, sex, and ethnic differences in employment and earnings. At a descriptive level, gross differences in employment and earnings among various race, sex, and ethnic groups have been identified. In addition, multivariate techniques are currently being used to ascertain the underlying factors responsible for these differences. For example, human capital theory suggests that an individual’s earning power in the labor market will reflect the effects of various types of human capital investments. Consequently, earnings should be significantly related to educational attainment, total work experience in the labor market, and tenure on the current job. In addition, various studies have identified a number of other factors that appear to be significantly related to earnings, for example, ability (IQ), class of worker, health status, size of place of residence, and region of residence. This area of research can be replicated using the NLSY97 data set.
The kinds of analyses described above for the NLSY97 cohort have in many cases already been done for the original NLS cohorts and the NLSY79. Consequently, several areas of considerable interest can be examined by comparing the new and old cohorts. For example, changes in the returns to various kinds of human capital investments for different groups can be measured. The extent of labor force attachment (and related labor market outcomes) among young women in the NLSY97 cohort compared with that of their counterparts in the earlier cohorts is another research area with the potential for investigation. Additional research could consider changes reflecting demographics (for example, changes in cohort sizes due to the “baby boom”), social change (impact of the “women’s liberation movement”), and the state of the economy. The answers to these questions are important for helping to guide public policy, as it pertains to both the labor market for young adults in particular and to the problems of labor market discrimination in general.
In recent years, nearly 20 percent of all births were to teenage mothers. Nearly 40 percent of these births were premarital and nearly two-thirds of the mothers had not completed high school. Past research suggests that these women have much poorer prospects than those who have children later; teenage mothers receive less education, have more children, and have both a higher risk of divorce and of becoming dependent on public assistance. For young men as well as young women, early parenthood may curtail the amount of education they receive and reduce their earnings potential. As the longitudinal collection of data continues, these issues can be examined in ever-increasing detail.
The NLSY97, which is enhanced by detailed pregnancy histories, makes it possible to study a variety of issues relating to these problems:
(a) What are the cultural, familial, attitudinal, and economic factors that increase the chances of early childbearing, early marriage, and separation or divorce? How have these causal relationships changed over time, as indicated by comparisons with the NLSY79 cohort and the 1966 young men and 1968 young women cohorts? Research with the NLSY79 data has already documented important changes in the relationship between early childbirth and early school-leaving and how early pregnancy is associated with a variety of family and outside influences. This research has documented the importance of alternate education programs, such as the GED, for helping young mothers attain secondary school credentials. It is important to see whether we can replicate these findings in the NLSY97.
(b) What are the social and economic consequences of early childbearing, marriage, and divorce? How do these effects vary according to sex, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status?
(c) For individuals who assume the responsibilities of marriage and child rearing at early ages, and for young mothers whose marriages dissolve, what kinds of public interventions are most likely to be effective in promoting economic independence? What are the potential roles of provision of child care, counseling, access to continuing education, and job training? Increasing numbers of researchers are utilizing the NLSY79 data set to explore these important policy-relevant questions; the NLSY97 will provide further information regarding a new generation.
(d) What are the implications of marital turbulence for mid-life outcomes? Do the effects of divorce depend upon when the divorce comes and the length of the marriage it terminated? What are the implications of marital status and especially divorce for measures of income equality?
The NLSY97 can be used to examine in detail the associations between geographic mobility, local and national levels of economic activity, and social, economic, and demographic characteristics of these respondents and their families. The longitudinal survey design, in conjunction with the plan to follow respondents regardless of where they move, enables researchers to model the determinants and consequences of geographic movement. In particular, the rich attitudinal content of the survey permits inferences with respect to the relative strength of economic motives in migration.
The NLSY97 permits quantification of gross changes in many aspects of the labor force status of young adults. The oversampling of blacks and Hispanics permits comparative analyses of labor force transition patterns for young male and female adults by race and ethnicity. A wide variety of background information also permits a careful examination of the extent to which variations in labor force behavior reflect differences in backgrounds, ethnic characteristics, and differential access to schooling. Patterns of labor force continuity and discontinuity for the various groups can be examined in great detail, and the social and economic costs of the variations in work attachment can be analyzed.
From a descriptive perspective, various types of mobility of young adults can be quantified: movement into and out of the labor force and between employment and unemployment, as well as movements between jobs and between full- and part-time employment. Moreover, the relationship between these changes and changes in school enrollment status, demographic events, and work attitudes can be analyzed. Examination of changes in labor force and employment status in relation to changing levels of national and local unemployment permit the testing of the “discouraged worker” and the “additional worker” hypotheses and an analysis of a variety of dimensions of frictional and “disguised” unemployment. By 2004, the end of the 7th round, the young adults in this sample will have been followed through a variety of economic climates permitting a more careful examination of the extent to which these gross flows are sensitive to cyclical and regional variations in economic conditions.
Also, by contrasting the patterns of labor force dynamics of the original NLS samples of young men and women and the NLSY79 with the patterns of the NLSY97 cohort, the question of whether or not the relationships between these transitions and levels of economic activity have changed over the past decades can be considered. Finally, one is able to examine whether or not demographic and socio-economic factors such as marriage, childbearing, and changes in family income levels show the same association with gross labor force movement as was true for the earlier cohorts.
Data derived from the NLSY97, used in conjunction with data from the 1966 young men’s cohort, the 1968 young women’s cohort, and the NLSY79, represent a unique means of measuring certain dimensions of social change among young American adults.
We are now able to measure trends in school attrition, labor force entry, and family formation. A variety of attitudinal measures toward work, school, and home are available for comparisons across time. From a more purely economic perspective, patterns of labor force behavior and experience of the four cohorts can be compared. This kind of analysis permits insights into such questions as the following: (a) the extent to which the draft and the Vietnam War conditioned labor market experiences of young men during the late 1960s and the differential response of cohorts of the ’80s and late ’90s to different rules regarding military service; (b) the extent to which the labor market experience of the earlier cohorts reflected the impact of their large numbers relative to the total labor force and how the birth cohort of the early ’80s is affected by the baby bust generation ten years earlier; and (c) the degree to which changing attitudes about the appropriate role of women have influenced the educational and labor market experience of the current generation of young women and whether there are any significant differences in experiences between the women in the NLSY79 and NLSY97.
The original NLS cohorts and the NLSY79 have already been used in this manner to compare early fertility patterns, work attitudes, and working propensities of youth in the late 1960s and late 1970s. This same analysis is destined to be repeated for the NLSY97. Comparison of this cohort with the earlier NLS cohorts of young people will reveal whether there are changes in work expectation over the intervening decade and a half.
The inclusion of self-reported delinquent behavior, school discipline, and arrest records in this cohort has permitted preliminary examination of the effects of these deviant behaviors on adolescent employment activity. Subsequent interview rounds will update these activities. This sample is ideally situated to understand delinquency, recidivism, and desistance as youths either become enmeshed in anti-social behavior or put youthful indiscretion aside and establish productive lives. The repeated collection of these data is of fundamental importance, as they permit examination of the extent to which (1) a sustained pattern of delinquent activities through adolescence and early adulthood is related to employment difficulties and (2) early deviant behaviors may be causally associated with a disposition toward excessive alcohol usage in later adolescence and early adulthood. Using both self-reports of behavior and of official disciplinary and court actions will allow researchers to separate their effects on the transition to employment. Several specific areas can be explored.
(a) What are the long-term effects of delinquency on adult employment? How many young adults with prior arrest records are in the labor force? Is prior official contact with the law in itself a barrier to employment, over and above the effects of factors leading to delinquent behavior? Are there differences in the employment implications of adolescent misbehavior for young adults from different social strata or different ethnic groups? Are particular patterns of delinquent behavior associated with different patterns of employment? In this regard, recently completed research suggests that the relationship between illegal activity and employment does indeed vary according to the type of crime involved; among youth out of school, young men who engage in violent activities have trouble getting and keeping jobs, resulting in less time employed and more time unemployed than their more peaceable counterparts.
(b) How do the factors associated with deviant behavior affect performance in and outcomes of subsequent government education and training programs? To what degree have such programs reached youths with police records? What implications does delinquency have for the accumulation of skills and education? Do youths with school discipline problems face special difficulties in acquiring employment-related skills? What effect does a criminal record have on school completion? High school dropouts have relatively high levels both of self-reported illegal behavior and of criminal records. To what extent does delinquency or a criminal record contribute to the employment problems of dropouts? For young women, in particular, how does a delinquency record interact with early school leaving and early pregnancy and motherhood?
Questions on drug and alcohol use profile the substance use patterns of young adults, a particularly important population. Evidence from drug abuse agencies indicates an increasing frequency of polydrug abuse, but the dynamics of such abuse in the general population are unknown. Having substance-use information on the NLSY97 respondents permits research into a number of important areas.
(a) What are the patterns of drug and alcohol use among the young adult population? Information on drug use gathered in the delinquency instrument, although limited, can be used to look at persistence and change in drug use patterns over time. What are the correlates of drug use? How do drug use patterns vary across ethnic groups and social class? Which young people are most likely to persist in drug use? Of particular interest is research on use of various combinations of drugs and alcohol, and the relationships between these combinations and successful life cycle transitions.
Research already completed from a variety of data sets indicates that there are sharp differences in the levels of alcohol use between men and women and between black men and other men. Women and black men report much lower levels of alcohol use, and especially a much lower frequency of heavy drinking, than do white or Hispanic men. The data set will permit examination of the demographics of changes in alcohol use patterns over time and the impact of marriage, school, and parenthood transitions on drinking.
(b) Do labor market conditions, particularly high unemployment rates, affect the incidence and prevalence of drug use? Can we predict which unemployed youths will turn to drugs, based on their background characteristics? The longitudinal information on alcohol use will allow causal inferences to be made, controlling for levels of alcohol use preceding spells of unemployment.
(c) Use of alcohol and some drugs are an integral part of social life among wide segments of society, and at the same time they are known contributors to major social problems. The NLSY97 may permit researchers to distinguish between socially acceptable and socially destructive patterns and combinations of drug use.
Date: October 4, 2004
Commissioner's Order No. 3-04
Subject: Confidential Nature of BLS Records
Purpose. The purpose of this Order is to state the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) policy concerning its confidential records.
Reference Office. Office of Administration, Division of Management Systems.
Authority. Secretary's Order 39-72, "Control of Data and Information Collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics," assigns the Commissioner of Labor Statistics responsibility for confidentiality policy and procedures related to the protection of BLS data and for deciding on all requests for public disclosure of data collected by the BLS. The Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 (CIPSEA), Title 5 of Public Law 107‑347, establishes statutory provisions protecting the confidentiality of data collected by Federal Executive Branch agencies for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998, Public Law 105-220, section 309(a)(2), establishes statutory provisions protecting the confidentiality of data collected through the Federal/State Labor Market Information programs. The Federal Statistical Confidentiality Order issued by the Office of Management and Budget, 62 Federal Register 35043 (June 27, 1997), establishes a consistent government policy protecting the confidentiality interests of respondents who provide information for Federal statistical programs.
Directives Affected. Commissioner's Order 3-93, "Confidential Nature of BLS Records," is replaced by this Order. In all cases where Commissioner's Order 3‑93 is cited as the BLS policy, this Order is henceforth the applicable document.
References. Administrative Procedure 1-96, “Responsibility for Safeguarding Confidential Information,” Commissioner’s Order 3-00, "Contracts and Agreements Involving BLS Confidential Data or Privacy Act Data,” and Commissioner’s Order 4‑00, “Advance Release of Embargoed News and Data Releases,” provide additional information on the BLS confidentiality policy.
Definitions. For purposes of this Order:
a. Confidential information includes:
Individually identifiable data. Any representation of information that permits the identity of the respondent to whom the information applies to be reasonably inferred by either direct or indirect means.
Pre-release economic data. Statistics and analyses that have not yet officially been released to the public, whether or not there is a set date and time of release before which they must not be divulged.
Embargoed data. Pre-release economic data for the Principal Federal Economic Indicators produced by the BLS. Currently, the following BLS data series have been designated by OMB as Principal Federal Economic Indicators: the Consumer Price Index, Employment Situation, Employment Cost Index, Producer Price Indexes, Productivity and Costs, Real Earnings, and U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes.
b. Respondent. A person who, or organization that, is requested or required to supply information to the BLS, is the subject of information requested or required to be supplied to the BLS, or provides that information to the BLS. A person or organization is not required to actually have provided information to BLS, or have had information provided to BLS from another source, to be considered a respondent.
c. Statistical purposes. The description, estimation, or analysis of the characteristics of groups without identifying the individuals or organizations that comprise such groups, and the development, implementation, or maintenance of methods, procedures, or information resources that support such purposes. This definition does not include any use of individually identifiable data for administrative, regulatory, law enforcement, adjudicatory, disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, or other similar purposes that affect the rights, privileges, or benefits of a particular respondent.
d. Statistical activities. The collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of data for the purpose of describing or making estimates or tabulations concerning the whole, or relevant groups or components within the economy, society, or the natural environment. Statistical activities include the development of methods or resources that support those activities, such as measurement methods, models, statistical classifications, or sampling frames.
e. Authorized persons. Officers, employees, and agents of the BLS who are responsible for collecting, processing, or using confidential data in furtherance of statistical purposes or for the other stated purposes for which the data were collected. Authorized persons are authorized access to only those confidential data that are integral to the program or project on which they work, and only to the extent required to perform their duties.
f. Agents. Individuals who meet the definition of agent as set forth by CIPSEA and who have been designated by the BLS to perform exclusively statistical activities through an Agent Agreement.
g. Disclose or Disclosure. The release of confidential information to anyone other than authorized persons or the respondent who provided or is the subject of the data.
h. Advance Release. Providing a BLS news or data release (or any part or derivative of a release) to a person or organization outside the BLS prior to its official date and time of public release.
7. Policy. In conformance with existing law and Departmental regulations, it is the policy of the BLS that:
a. Individually identifiable data collected or maintained by, or under the auspices of, the BLS for exclusively statistical purposes and under a pledge of confidentiality shall be treated in a manner that will ensure that the data will be used only for statistical purposes and will be accessible only to authorized persons.
b. Pre-release economic data, including embargoed data, prepared for release to the public will not be disclosed or used in an unauthorized manner before they officially have been released, and will be accessible only to authorized persons.
8. Designation of Authorized Persons. The following categories of individuals are authorized persons:
a. BLS officers and employees who take the oath of office and who sign the BLS Employee Acknowledgment Letter when they enter on duty.
b. Individuals designated as agents who fall within one of the following categories:
i. State agency employees who are directly involved in the BLS/State cooperative programs, who are subject to the provisions of the BLS/State cooperative agreement, and who have signed a BLS Agent Agreement.
ii. BLS Contract employees whose contract under which they are working contains provisions that includes the BLS confidentiality policy and who have signed a BLS Agent Agreement.
iii. Individuals working under the authority of a separate government entity with which the BLS has entered into a contract or other agreement that includes the BLS confidentiality policy and who have signed a BLS Agent Agreement.
iv. Researchers who are affiliated with an organization with which the BLS has entered into a contract or other agreement that includes the BLS confidentiality policy, who are working on a temporary basis on a statistical project of interest to the BLS, and who have signed a BLS Agent Agreement.
v. Any other individuals who are affiliated with an organization with which the BLS has entered into a contract or other agreement that includes the BLS confidentiality policy. Such individuals must meet the definition of an agent under CIPSEA, and must sign a BLS Agent Agreement.
9. Delegation of Authority for Designating Agents.
a. The authority for designating agents for access to the confidential National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Geocode Files for statistical research is hereby delegated to the Senior Research Economist for Employment Research and Program Development.
b. The authority for designating agents for access to the confidential Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Research File for statistical research is hereby delegated to the Assistant Commissioner for Safety, Health, and Working Conditions.
c. The authority for designating agents for access to all other BLS confidential data is delegated to the Associate Commissioner for the office in which the confidential data are maintained.
10. Implementation. In the execution of this general policy concerning confidential BLS records, the following requirements shall be in effect:
a. Data collected in cooperation with another Federal or State agency for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality are covered by the policy of this Order and by applicable Federal laws governing the handling of confidential information.
b. Files maintained by another Federal or State agency that are commingled with confidential information collected by BLS for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality are covered by the policy of this Order and by applicable Federal laws governing the handling of confidential information. Further, any data, including publicly available data, that are commingled with confidential information covered by this Order are to be treated as confidential and handled in accordance with this policy.
c. Universe lists derived from information provided to the BLS for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality shall be kept confidential.
d. The survey sample composition, lists of reporters, names of respondents, and brand names shall be kept confidential, regardless of the source of such lists or names.
e. Publications shall be prepared in such a way that they will not reveal the identity of any specific respondent and, to the knowledge of the preparer, will not allow information concerning the respondent to be reasonably inferred by either direct or indirect means.
f. Frequency count data of establishments tabulated by the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) are not considered confidential since general information about an establishment, particularly information on the establishment location and line of business (or industry) that would be used in a frequency count table, is publicly available. All other information maintained by BLS in the QCEW file, including the employment and wages of establishments, is considered confidential and must be handled in accordance with this policy and applicable Federal law.
g. All individuals or organizations, government or private, who enter into a contract or other agreement with the BLS for the collection, processing, maintenance, or storage of data shall conform to CIPSEA and other applicable Federal laws, to the BLS confidentiality policy, to Commissioner's Order 3‑00, "Contracts and Agreements Involving BLS Confidential Data or Privacy Act Data,” and to all specific procedures published pursuant to this Order.
h. Each BLS/State cooperative agreement shall designate a State official to serve as a State Cooperating Representative. The State Cooperating Representative shall act as the BLS representative for ensuring that all provisions of the BLS confidentiality policy are understood and complied with in the cooperating State agency. The State Cooperating Representative and all other State agency personnel who receive access to BLS confidential data must be designated agents of the BLS in accordance with Section 8, “Designation of Authorized Persons.”
i. Any restrictions placed by international sources upon the use of data obtained from those sources shall be observed. Also, any limitations placed by the Department of State or other agency upon the use, dissemination, or handling of data obtained through Foreign Service channels shall be observed wherever applicable.
j. BLS officers, employees, and agents who are responsible for collecting data shall not sign any confidentiality agreements required by respondents. Such agreements may be forwarded to the Division of Management Systems for consideration. Signing of building entrance logs, which sometimes may contain confidentiality language, is allowed.
k. Programs are responsible for complying with Disclosure Review Board (DRB) policies established under BLS Statistical Policy Directives. In addition, when specific disclosure limitation issues arise, programs are responsible for consulting with the DRB prior to disseminating potentially confidential information.
l. In order for data obtained solely from a publicly available source to be covered under this Order, a pledge of confidentiality must be provided to the person or organization that is the subject of the information.
m. Programs may provide data to other BLS programs, with management approval, for the statistical purposes of data reconciliation.
n. Under limited circumstances, advance release of pre-release economic data is permitted with the authorization of the Commissioner. Advance release of embargoed data is permitted only under the conditions set out in Commissioner’s Order 4-00, “Advance Release of Embargoed News and Data Releases.”
11. Exceptions Under Conditions of Informed Consent.
a. Exceptions to the general policy relating to the disclosure of confidential data set forth in Section 7, "Policy," or to the provisions listed in Section 10, "Implementation," shall be granted only under the conditions of informed consent. Proposed informed consent arrangements shall be developed in consultation with the Division of Management Systems and must be authorized by the Commissioner prior to implementation. In order for an informed consent arrangement to be approved, one of the following conditions must be met:
i. It is made clear to the respondent when the data are obtained that they will be released under specified conditions. This notification must be in writing in all notices placed in the Federal Register as part of the Office of Management and Budget clearance process for survey collection instruments and either on the collection vehicle itself or in an accompanying letter.
ii. The written permission of the respondent to release the data is secured after the data have been furnished to BLS on a confidential basis. The actual respondent (or for establishments, a management level official who clearly has proper authority) must authorize the release. In cases where establishments no longer exist and no successor establishment can be located, the Commissioner retains sole discretion on whether a release will be authorized. The written permission of the respondent must be obtained and kept on file by the authorized person negotiating the conditions of informed consent.
b. For BLS/State cooperative programs, the Associate Commissioner for Field Operations is assigned the responsibility to establish policies and procedures for exceptions to the publication policy set forth in Section 10e when the written consent of respondents has been obtained. Such policies and procedures shall provide for the approval of those exceptions, and for obtaining and maintaining records of the respondent's written consent in the regional office and State files.
12. Disciplinary Actions. It is the policy of the BLS to enforce the provisions of this Order to the full extent of its authority. Any unauthorized disclosure or use of confidential records by a BLS officer or employee may constitute cause for the BLS to take disciplinary action against that officer or employee including, but not limited to, reprimand, suspension, demotion, or removal. Any unauthorized disclosure or use of confidential records by a BLS contractor or other agent may constitute cause for removal from further work under the contract or other agreement through which access to confidential information is authorized or termination of the contract or other agreement. Furthermore, a knowing and willful disclosure by a BLS officer, employee, or agent of individually identifiable data collected for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality would be a violation of CIPSEA and potentially other applicable Federal laws that carry criminal fines and penalties.
13. Effective Date. This Order is effective immediately.
KATHLEEN P. UTGOFF
Commissioner of Labor Statistics
TITLE V CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION PROTECTION AND STATISTICAL EFFICIENCY
SEC. 501. SHORT TITLE.
This title may be cited as the “Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002”.
SEC. 502. DEFINITIONS.
As used in this title:
(1) The term “agency” means any entity that falls within the definition of the term “executive agency” as defined in section 102 of title 31, United States Code, or “agency”, as defined in section 3502 of title 44, United States Code.
(2) The term “agent” means an individual—
(A)(i) who is an employee of a private organization or a researcher affiliated with an institution of higher learning (including a person granted special sworn status by the Bureau of the Census under section 23(c) of title 13, United States Code), and with whom a contract or other agreement is executed, on a temporary basis, by an executive agency to perform exclusively statistical activities under the control and supervision of an officer or employee of that agency;
(ii) who is working under the authority of a government entity with which a contract or other agreement is executed by an executive agency to perform exclusively statistical activities under the control of an officer or employee of that agency;
(iii) who is a self-employed researcher, a consultant, a contractor, or an employee of a contractor, and with whom a contract or other agreement is executed by an executive agency to perform a statistical activity under the control of an officer or employee of that agency; or
(iv) who is a contractor or an employee of a contractor, and who is engaged by the agency to design or maintain the systems for handling or storage of data received under this title; and
(B) who agrees in writing to comply with all provisions of law that affect information acquired by that agency.
(3) The term “business data” means operating and financial data and information about businesses, tax-exempt organizations, and government entities.
(4) The term “identifiable form” means any representation of information that permits the identity of the respondent to whom the information applies to be reasonably inferred by either direct or indirect means.
(5) The term “nonstatistical purpose”—
(A) means the use of data in identifiable form for any purpose that is not a statistical purpose, including any administrative, regulatory, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or other purpose that affects the rights, privileges, or benefits of a particular identifiable respondent; and
(B) includes the disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code (popularly known as the Freedom of Information Act) of data that are acquired for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality.
(6) The term “respondent” means a person who, or organization that, is requested or required to supply information to an agency, is the subject of information requested or required to be supplied to an agency, or provides that information to an agency.
(7) The term “statistical activities”—
(A) means the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of data for the purpose of describing or making estimates concerning the whole, or relevant groups or components within, the economy, society, or the natural environment; and
(B) includes the development of methods or resources that support those activities, such as measurement methods, models, statistical classifications, or sampling frames.
(8) The term “statistical agency or unit” means an agency or organizational unit of the executive branch whose activities are predominantly the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of information for statistical purposes.
(9) The term “statistical purpose”—
(A) means the description, estimation, or analysis of the characteristics of groups, without identifying the individuals or organizations that comprise such groups; and
(B) includes the development, implementation, or maintenance of methods, technical or administrative procedures, or information resources that support the purposes described in subparagraph (A).
SEC. 503. COORDINATION AND OVERSIGHT OF POLICIES.
(a) In General.--The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall coordinate and oversee the confidentiality and disclosure policies established by this title. The Director may promulgate rules or provide other guidance to ensure consistent interpretation of this title by the affected agencies.
(b) Agency Rules.--Subject to subsection (c), agencies may promulgate rules to implement this title. Rules governing disclosures of information that are authorized by this title shall be promulgated by the agency that originally collected the information.
(c) Review and Approval of Rules.--The Director shall review any rules proposed by an agency pursuant to this title for consistency with the provisions of this title and chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code, and such rules shall be subject to the approval of the Director.
(d) Reports.—
(1) The head of each agency shall provide to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget such reports and other information as the Director requests.
(2) Each Designated Statistical Agency referred to in section 522 shall report annually to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate on the actions it has taken to implement sections 523 and 524. The report shall include copies of each written agreement entered into pursuant to section 524(a) for the applicable year.
(3) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall include a summary of reports submitted to the Director under paragraph (2) and actions taken by the Director to advance the purposes of this title in the annual report to the Congress on statistical programs prepared under section 3504(e)(2) of title 44, United States Code.
SEC. 504. EFFECT ON OTHER LAWS.
(a) Title 44, United States Code.--This title, including amendments made by this title, does not diminish the authority under section 3510 of title 44, United States Code, of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to direct, and of an agency to make, disclosures that are not inconsistent with any applicable law.
(b) Title 13 and Title 44, United States Code.--This title, including amendments made by this title, does not diminish the authority of the Bureau of the Census to provide information in accordance with sections 8, 16, 301, and 401 of title 13, United States Code, and section 2108 of title 44, United States Code.
(c) Title 13, United States Code.--This title, including amendments made by this title, shall not be construed as authorizing the disclosure for nonstatistical purposes of demographic data or information collected by the Census Bureau pursuant to section 9 of title 13, United States
Code.
(d) Various Energy Statutes.--Data or information acquired by the Energy Information Administration under a pledge of confidentiality and designated by the Energy Information Administration to be used for exclusively statistical purposes shall not be disclosed in identifiable form for nonstatistical purposes under—
(1) section 12, 20, or 59 of the Federal Energy Administration Act of 1974 (15 U.S.C. 771, 779, 790h);
(2) section 11 of the Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act of 1974 (15 U.S.C. 796); or
(3) section 205 or 407 of the Department of the Energy Organization Act of 1977 (42 U.S.C. 7135, 7177).
(e) Section 201 of Congressional Budget Act of 1974.--This title, including amendments made by this title, shall not be construed to limit any authorities of the Congressional Budget Office to work (consistent with laws governing the confidentiality of information the disclosure of which would be a violation of law) with databases of Designated Statistical Agencies (as defined in section 522), either separately or, for data that may be shared pursuant to section 524 of this title or other authority, jointly in order to improve the general utility of these databases for the statistical purpose of analyzing pension and health care financing issues.
(f) Preemption of State Law.--Nothing in this title shall preempt applicable State law regarding the confidentiality of data collected by the States.
(g) Statutes Regarding False Statements.--Notwithstanding section 512, information collected by an agency for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality may be provided by the collecting agency to a law enforcement agency for the prosecution of submissions to the collecting agency of false statistical information under statutes that authorize criminal penalties (such as section 221 of title 13, United States Code) or civil penalties for the provision of false statistical information, unless such disclosure or use would otherwise be prohibited under Federal law.
(h) Construction.--Nothing in this title shall be construed as restricting or diminishing any confidentiality protections or penalties for unauthorized disclosure that otherwise apply to data or information collected for statistical purposes or nonstatistical purposes, including, but not limited to, section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (26 U.S.C. 6103).
(i) Authority of Congress.--Nothing in this title shall be construed to affect the authority of the Congress, including its committees, members, or agents, to obtain data or information for a statistical purpose, including for oversight of an agency's statistical activities.
Subtitle A--Confidential Information Protection
SEC. 511. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
(1) Individuals, businesses, and other organizations have varying degrees of legal protection when providing information to the agencies for strictly statistical purposes.
(2) Pledges of confidentiality by agencies provide assurances to the public that information about individuals or organizations or provided by individuals or organizations for exclusively statistical purposes will be held in confidence and will not be used against such individuals or organizations in any agency action.
(3) Protecting the confidentiality interests of individuals or organizations who provide information under a pledge of confidentiality for Federal statistical programs serves both the interests of the public and the needs of society.
(4) Declining trust of the public in the protection of information provided under a pledge of confidentiality to the agencies adversely affects both the accuracy and completeness of statistical analyses.
(5) Ensuring that information provided under a pledge of confidentiality for statistical purposes receives protection is essential in continuing public cooperation in statistical programs.
(b) Purposes.--The purposes of this subtitle are the following:
(1) To ensure that information supplied by individuals or organizations to an agency for statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
(2) To ensure that individuals or organizations who supply information under a pledge of confidentiality to agencies for statistical purposes will neither have that information disclosed in identifiable form to anyone not authorized by this title nor have that information used for any purpose other than a statistical purpose.
(3) To safeguard the confidentiality of individually identifiable information acquired under a pledge of confidentiality for statistical purposes by controlling access to, and uses made of, such information.
SEC. 512. LIMITATIONS ON USE AND DISCLOSURE OF DATA AND INFORMATION.
(a) Use of Statistical Data or Information.--Data or information acquired by an agency under a pledge of confidentiality and for exclusively statistical purposes shall be used by officers, employees, or agents of the agency exclusively for statistical purposes.
(b) Disclosure of Statistical Data or Information.—
(1) Data or information acquired by an agency under a pledge of confidentiality for exclusively statistical purposes shall not be disclosed by an agency in identifiable form, for any use other than an exclusively statistical purpose, except with the informed consent of the respondent.
(2) A disclosure pursuant to paragraph (1) is authorized only when the head of the agency approves such disclosure and the disclosure is not prohibited by any other law.
(3) This section does not restrict or diminish any confidentiality protections in law that otherwise apply to data or information acquired by an agency under a pledge of confidentiality for exclusively statistical purposes.
(c) Rule for Use of Data or Information for Nonstatistical Purposes.--A statistical agency or unit shall clearly distinguish any data or information it collects for nonstatistical purposes (as authorized by law) and provide notice to the public, before the data or information is collected, that the data or information could be used for nonstatistical purposes.
(d) Designation of Agents.--A statistical agency or unit may designate agents, by contract or by entering into a special agreement containing the provisions required under section 502(2) for treatment as an agent under that section, who may perform exclusively statistical activities, subject to the limitations and penalties described in this title.
SEC. 513. FINES AND PENALTIES.
Whoever, being an officer, employee, or agent of an agency acquiring information for exclusively statistical purposes, having taken and subscribed the oath of office, or having sworn to observe the limitations imposed by section 512, comes into possession of such information by reason of his or her being an officer, employee, or agent and, knowing that the disclosure of the specific information is prohibited under the provisions of this title, willfully discloses the information in any manner to a person or agency not entitled to receive it, shall be guilty of a class E felony and imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or fined not more than $250,000, or both.
Subtitle B--Statistical Efficiency
SEC. 521. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
(1) Federal statistics are an important source of information for public and private decision-makers such as policymakers, consumers, businesses, investors, and workers.
(2) Federal statistical agencies should continuously seek to improve their efficiency. Statutory constraints limit the ability of these agencies to share data and thus to achieve higher efficiency for Federal statistical programs.
(3) The quality of Federal statistics depends on the willingness of businesses to respond to statistical surveys. Reducing reporting burdens will increase response rates, and therefore lead to more accurate characterizations of the economy.
(4) Enhanced sharing of business data among the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics for exclusively statistical purposes will improve their ability to track more accurately the large and rapidly changing nature of United States business. In particular, the statistical agencies will be able to better ensure that businesses are consistently classified in appropriate industries, resolve data anomalies, produce statistical samples that are consistently adjusted for the entry and exit of new businesses in a timely manner, and correct faulty reporting errors quickly and efficiently.
(5) The Congress enacted the International Investment and Trade in Services Act of 1990 that allowed the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to share data on foreign-owned companies. The Act not only expanded detailed industry coverage from 135 industries to over 800 industries with no increase in the data collected from respondents but also demonstrated how data sharing can result in the creation of valuable data products.
(6) With subtitle A of this title, the sharing of business data among the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics continues to ensure the highest level of confidentiality for respondents to statistical surveys.
(b) Purposes.--The purposes of this subtitle are the following:
(1) To authorize the sharing of business data among the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics for exclusively statistical purposes.
(2) To reduce the paperwork burdens imposed on businesses that provide requested information to the Federal Government.
(3) To improve the comparability and accuracy of Federal economic statistics by allowing the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to update sample frames, develop consistent classifications of establishments and companies into industries, improve coverage, and reconcile significant differences in data produced by the three agencies.
(4) To increase understanding of the United States economy, especially for key industry and regional statistics, to develop more accurate measures of the impact of technology on productivity growth, and to enhance the reliability of the Nation's most important economic indicators, such as the National Income and Product Accounts.
SEC. 522. DESIGNATION OF STATISTICAL AGENCIES.
For purposes of this subtitle, the term “Designated Statistical Agency” means each of the following:
(1) The Bureau of the Census of the Department of Commerce.
(2) The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce.
(3) The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor.
SEC. 523. RESPONSIBILITIES OF DESIGNATED STATISTICAL AGENCIES.
The head of each of the Designated Statistical Agencies shall—
(1) identify opportunities to eliminate duplication and otherwise reduce reporting burden and cost imposed on the public in providing information for statistical purposes;
(2) enter into joint statistical projects to improve the quality and reduce the cost of statistical programs; and
(3) protect the confidentiality of individually identifiable information acquired for statistical purposes by adhering to safeguard principles, including—
(A) emphasizing to their officers, employees, and agents the importance of protecting the confidentiality of information in cases where the identity of individual respondents can reasonably be inferred by either direct or indirect means;
(B) training their officers, employees, and agents in their legal obligations to protect the confidentiality of individually identifiable information and in the procedures that must be followed to provide access to such information;
(C) implementing appropriate measures to assure the physical and electronic security of confidential data;
(D) establishing a system of records that identifies individuals accessing confidential data and the project for which the data were required; and
(E) being prepared to document their compliance with safeguard principles to other agencies authorized by law to monitor such compliance.
SEC. 524. SHARING OF BUSINESS DATA AMONG DESIGNATED STATISTICAL AGENCIES.
(a) In General.--A Designated Statistical Agency may provide business data in an identifiable form to another Designated Statistical Agency under the terms of a written agreement among the agencies sharing the business data that specifies—
(1) the business data to be shared;
(2) the statistical purposes for which the business data are to be used;
(3) the officers, employees, and agents authorized to examine the business data to be shared; and
(4) appropriate security procedures to safeguard the confidentiality of the business data.
(b) Responsibilities of Agencies Under Other Laws.--The provision of business data by an agency to a Designated Statistical Agency under this subtitle shall in no way alter the responsibility of the agency providing the data under other statutes (including section 552 of title 5, United States Code (popularly known as the Freedom of Information Act), and section 552b of title 5, United States Code (popularly known as the Privacy Act of 1974)) with respect to the provision or withholding of such information by the agency providing the data.
(c) Responsibilities of Officers, Employees, and Agents.--Examination of business data in identifiable form shall be limited to the officers, employees, and agents authorized to examine the individual reports in accordance with written agreements pursuant to this section. Officers, employees, and agents of a Designated Statistical Agency who receive data pursuant to this subtitle shall be subject to all provisions of law, including penalties, that relate—
(1) to the unlawful provision of the business data that would apply to the officers, employees, and agents of the agency that originally obtained the information; and
(2) to the unlawful disclosure of the business data that would apply to officers, employees, and agents of the agency that originally obtained the information.
(d) Notice.--Whenever a written agreement concerns data that respondents were required by law to report and the respondents were not informed that the data could be shared among the Designated Statistical Agencies, for exclusively statistical purposes, the terms of such agreement shall be described in a public notice issued by the agency that intends to provide the data. Such notice shall allow a minimum of 60 days for public comment.
SEC. 525. LIMITATIONS ON USE OF BUSINESS DATA PROVIDED BY DESIGNATED STATISTICAL AGENCIES.
(a) Use, Generally.--Business data provided by a Designated Statistical Agency pursuant to this subtitle shall be used exclusively for statistical purposes.
(b) Publication.--Publication of business data acquired by a Designated Statistical Agency shall occur in a manner whereby the data furnished by any particular respondent are not in identifiable form.
SEC. 526. CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.
(a) Department of Commerce.--Section 1 of the Act of January 27, 1938 (15 U.S.C. 176a) is amended by striking “The” and inserting “Except as provided in the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002, the”.
(b) Title 13.--Chapter 10 of title 13, United States Code, is amended—
(1) by adding after section 401 the following:
“Sec. 402. Providing business data to Designated Statistical Agencies
“The Bureau of the Census may provide business data to the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (‘Designated Statistical Agencies’) if such information is required for an authorized statistical purpose and the provision is the subject of a written agreement with that Designated Statistical Agency, or their successors, as defined in the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002.”; and
(2) in the table of sections for the chapter by adding after the item relating to section 401 the following:
“402. Providing business data to Designated Statistical Agencies.”
Approved December 17, 2002.
WHY IS THIS STUDY IMPORTANT?
Thanks to your help, policymakers and researchers will have a better understanding of the work experiences, family characteristics, health, financial status, and other important information about the lives of people in your generation. This is a voluntary study, and there are no penalties for not answering questions. However, missing responses make it more difficult to understand the issues that concern people in your community and across the country. Your answers represent the experiences of hundreds of other people your age. We hope we can count on your participation again this year.
WHO AUTHORIZES THIS STUDY?
The sponsor of the study is the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. The study is authorized under Title 29, Section 2, of the United States Code. The Center for Human Resource Research at The Ohio State University and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago conduct this study under a contract with the Department of Labor. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved the questionnaire and has assigned 1220-0157 as the study’s control number. This control number expires on October 31, 2007. Without OMB approval and this number, we would not be able to conduct this study.
WHO SEES MY ANSWERS?
We want to reassure you that your confidentiality is protected by law. In accordance with the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002, the Privacy Act, and other applicable Federal laws, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, its employees and agents, will, to the full extent permitted by law, use the information you provide for statistical purposes only, will hold your responses in confidence, and will not disclose them in identifiable form without your informed consent. All the employees who work on the survey at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and its contractors must sign a document agreeing to protect the confidentiality of your data. In fact, only a few people have access to information about your identity because they need that information to carry out their job duties.
Some of your answers will be made available to researchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other government agencies, universities, and private research organizations through publicly available data files. These publicly available files contain no personal identifiers, such as names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and places of work, and exclude any information about the States, counties, metropolitan areas, and other, more detailed geographic locations in which survey participants live, making it much more difficult to figure out the identities of participants. Some researchers are granted special access to data files that include geographic information, but only after those researchers go through a thorough application process at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those authorized researchers must sign a written agreement making them official agents of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and requiring them to protect the confidentiality of survey participants. Those researchers are never provided with the personal identities of participants. The National Archives and Records Administration and the General Services Administration may receive copies of survey data and materials because those agencies are responsible for storing the Nation’s historical documents.
HOW MUCH TIME WILL THE INTERVIEW TAKE?
Based on preliminary tests, we expect the average interview to take about 60 minutes. Your interview may be somewhat shorter or longer depending on your circumstances. If you have any comments regarding this study or recommendations for reducing its length, send them to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Longitudinal Surveys, 2 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20212.
A. Proposed edits to consent and disclosure items in Household Information section.
Round 9 wording for question YHHI-1240:
In order to confirm your contacting information, may we search the web, check phone and address directories, consult public records, and use companies that provide directory assistance or other commercial locator services?
Proposed edits for Round 10 question YHHI-1240:
In
order to confirm your contacting information, may we search
the web, check phone and address directories, consult public records,
and use
companies that provide directory
assistance or other
commercial locator services?
B. Revisions to the Round 9 questionnaire for Round 10 administration
The Round 10 questionnaire resembles the Round 9 questionnaire with few modifications. Below, we list the sections of the Rounds 9 and 10 questionnaires, with any differences between the two rounds.
Universal change:
Updated country list to reflect new nations and reduce some duplicates. Revised list appears in Household Information, Schooling, College Choice, and Locating.
Household Information
1. Minor wording changes in introduction described in section B above.
2. Re-insert Immigration questions used in Round 5: YHHI-55700, 55701, 55702, 55703, 55704, 55705, 55705A 55706. Eligibility will be changed to include only respondents who have not already reported being U.S. citizens.
3. Add item about grandparents’ birth countries and birth: YHHI-55710, 55711, 55712, YHHI-55713, 55714, 55715, 55716, 55717, 55718, 55719, 55720, 55721, 55722, 55723A, 55723, 55724, 55725, 55726, 55727, 55728, 55729, 55730, 55731, 55732, 55733, 55734
Childhood Retrospective
Eliminate section.
Current Population Survey employment status questions
New section, taken directly from CPS.
Schooling
1. Removing childhood retrospective, so YHHI-check3, YHHI-56200, 56200A, 56250, 56400, 56400A and 56500 should default to YSCH-401.
2. Removing YSCH-400 and replacing with YSCH-401 and 402
The specific round 10 questions are shown below.
YSCH-401. The next questions are about schooling. Before we collect specifics about your recent schooling, please think generally. In the past 12 months, have you talked with anyone about questions you had about schooling —for example, which courses you might take, whether or not you should go back to school or which colleges you should apply to?
1 Yes
0 No
If answer=1, then go to YSCH-402.
Lead in: YHHI-check3 (default), YHHI-56200(default),, YHHI- 56200A(default),, YHHI-56250(default),, YHHI-56400(default),, YHHI-56400A(default), and YHHI-56500(default),
Default next: YSCH-403
YSCH-402
In the past 12 months, who have you discussed schooling issues with most often?
1 Your biological or adoptive mother
2 Your biological or adoptive father
3 Your step parent
4 Your brother or sister
5 Another relative
6 Your spouse, partner, boyfriend or girlfriend
7 Another friend or personal acquaintance
8 Someone with professional expertise in this field
9 Someone in a different field with whom you have a professional relationship, for example, a professor, a member of the clergy, your boss, or a case worker
10 Someone else (specify)
11 No one
Lead-in : YSCH-401 [1:1]
Default next: YSCH-403
YSCH-403 [] |
Section: Schooling |
[LONGTERM] == 1
COMMENT:
R was long-term out of school
0 |
0 CONDITION DOES NOT APPLY |
1 |
1 CONDITION APPLIES |
If Answer = 1 Then GoTo YSCH-404C |
Default
Next: YSCH-405
Lead-In: |
YSCH-401 [Default], YSCH-402 [Default] |
College Choice
No changes.
Employment
1. Add YEMP-9811 and 9812- Insert ‘domains of influence’ replacement questions
2. Modification of employer’s name due to change in employer’s ownership. We will keep the continuity of the job and either add or modify the existing question that corrects the employers name so that it allows for such changes. Modified YEMP-9899D, 9899E, 9899G and Added YEMP-9899G1
3. Add promotion questions: YEMP-80799C, 80799D, 80799 E and 80799F
The specific round 10 questions are shown below.
1. Add YEMP-9811 and 9812- Insert ‘domains of influence’ replacement questions
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9810 []Section: Employment
Default Next: YEMP-9811 Lead-In: YCOC-003ACHECK1 [1:1], YCOC-001 [Default], YCOC-002 [Default], YCOC-003ACHECK2 [Default], YCOC-003AA [Default], YCOC-80-LOOP-END [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9811. The next questions are about work issues. Before we collect specifics about your recent employment, please think generally. In the past 12 months, have you talked with anyone about work issues? For example-- how to look for a job, or how to handle a situation in your current job?
1 Yes
0 No
(If answer=1, go to YEMP-9812)
Default next : YEMP-9840
Lead in: YEMP-9810 (default)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9812.
In the past 12 months, who have you discussed work issues with most often ?
1 Your biological or adoptive mother
2 Your biological or adoptive father
3 Your step parent
4 Your brother or sister
5 Another relative
6 Your spouse, partner, boyfriend or girlfriend
7 Another friend or personal acquaintance
8 Someone with professional expertise in this field
9 Someone in a different field with whom you have a professional relationship, for example, a professor, a member of the clergy, your boss, or a case worker
10 Someone else (specify)
11 No one
Lead in: YEMP-9811[1:1]
Default next: YEMP-9840
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9840_revised [ ]Section: Employment
Now, I would like to talk to you about any work you have done in the time since the date of your last interview, that is, since [lintdate~X].
Let's start by making a list of all jobs you've held since we last talked. Please include all jobs where you were working for a particular employer (including working in a family business) as well as jobs where you were self-employed. Jobs as an employee include all jobs where you have an ongoing relationship with one employer - let's say in a store, factory, or office. Self-employed jobs are where you own your own business (for example, a lawn service) or where you do the same type of task for many different people (designing web sites, for instance). In self-employed jobs, you are your own boss. I'll first ask you about any jobs you reported having the last time we
talked, and then we'll talk about new jobs you've held since that time. I will be asking you different dates during this section. You may find
it helpful to refer to the calendar I handed you earlier.
Default Next: YEMP-9850-LOOP-BEGIN Lead-In: YEMP-9810 [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9850-LOOP-BEGIN []Section: Employment
REPEAT
COMMENT: ALTERNANT BEGIN LOOPS TO UPDATE/VERIFY EMPLOYERS FROM DLI
Default Next: YEMP-9860Lead-In: YEMP-9840 [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9860 []Section: Employment
[key_agedli] < 14
COMMENT: R was less than 14 at DLI
00 CONDITION DOES NOT APPLY
11 CONDITION APPLIES
If Answer = 1 Then GoTo YEMP-9899PZJ-LOOP-END
Default Next: YEMP-9870Lead-In: YEMP-9850-LOOP-BEGIN [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9870 []Section: Employment
VAREXIST ([tempoldempname([ALTY5-LOOP2-DLIEMP])])
COMMENT: there is a DLI employer to ask about
00 CONDITION DOES NOT APPLY
11 CONDITION APPLIES
If Answer = 1 Then GoTo YEMP-9870A
Default Next: YEMP-9880Lead-In: YEMP-9860 [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9870A []Section: Employment
[tempoldempname([ALTY5-LOOP2-DLIEMP])] != ""
COMMENT: there is a DLI employer to ask about
00 CONDITION DOES NOT APPLY
11 CONDITION APPLIES
If Answer = 1 Then GoTo YEMP-9899BX
Default Next: YEMP-9880Lead-In: YEMP-9870 [1:1]
YEMP-9899BX []Section: Employment
[alty5-loop2-dliemp] == 1
COMMENT: this is 1st time through loop to check DLI employers
00 CONDITION DOES NOT APPLY
11 CONDITION APPLIES
If Answer = 0 Then GoTo YEMP-9899D
Default Next: YEMP-9899CLead-In: YEMP-9870A [1:1]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Modification of employer’s name due to change in employer’s ownership
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YEMP-9899C []Section: Employment
Now we would like to ask you about jobs you had on [lintdate~X].
Default Next: YEMP-9899D Lead-In: YEMP-9899BX [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9899D []Section: Employment
My computer shows that you were (working/also working) [yemp1_as_for] [tempoldempname([ALTY5-LOOP2-DLIEMP])] on [lintdate~X]. Is that correct?
Enter :
1 YES
0 NO
3 IF VOLUNTEERED: EMPLOYER NAME INCORRECT INCLUDING EMPLOYER NAME CHANGE
Default Next: YEMP-9899E Lead-In: YEMP-9899BX [0:0], YEMP-9899C [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9899E []Section: Employment
[dlicorrect([ALTY5-LOOP2-DLIEMP])]
COMMENT: set up appropriate branching for YEMP-9899D, if DLI employers were correct
1 Yes
0 No
3 If volunteered: employer name incorrect
If Answer = 1 Then GoTo YEMP-9899G
If Answer = 3 Then GoTo YEMP-9899F
Default Next: YEMP-9899M Lead-In: YEMP-9899D [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9899F []Section: Employment
What was the correct name for [tempoldempname([altY5-LOOP2-DLIEMP])]?
(ENTER EMPLOYER NAME)
Enter :
Default Next: YEMP-9899G Lead-In: YEMP-9899E
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9880 []Section: Employment
My computer shows that you did NOT have any (OTHER) employment on [lintdate~X]. Is that correct?
Enter :
1 YES ...(Go To YEMP-9899PZJ-LOOP-END)
0 NO
Default Next: YEMP-9890 Lead-In: YEMP-9870 [Default], YEMP-9870A [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9890 []Section: Employment
Let me get some information about jobs you held at that time that are not listed on my computer.
Enter :
1 SELECT TO CONTINUE
2 NO (OTHER) EMPLOYER ...(Go To YEMP-9899PZJ-LOOP-END)
Default Next: YEMP-9890ALead-In: YEMP-9880 [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9890A []Section: Employment
(Besides the employers we have already talked about) for whom were you (also) working on [LINTDATE~X]?
Enter :
Default Next: YEMP-9899BWLead-In: YEMP-9890 [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9899BW []Section: Employment
When did you first start working for [tempoldempname([ALTY5-LOOP2-DLIEMP])]?
(ENTER DATE)
Enter Date:
Month Day Year
Default Next: YEMP-9899G Lead-In: YEMP-9890A [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9899G []Section: Employment
Sometimes businesses change names, maybe because they change ownership or for marketing purposes. Are you currently working [as/for] [tempoldname...], under this business name or a new business name?
1. Yes, this business name (go to 9899PZJ-loop-end)
2. Yes, new business name (ask 9899G_1)
3. No (default 9899H)
Default Next: YEMP-9899H Lead-In: YEMP-9899E [1:1], YEMP-9899BW [Default], YEMP-9899F [Default]
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP- 9899G_1
What is the new name for [tempoldname...]?
(ENTER NEW EMPLOYER NAME)
Enter :
Default Next: YEMP-9899PZJ-loop-end Lead-In: YEMP-9899G
____________________________________________________________________________________________
YEMP-9899H []Section: Employment
PROBE: IS RESPONDENT ON LEAVE?
Enter :
1 YES ...(Go To YEMP-9899K)
0 NO
Default Next: YEMP-9899I Lead-In: YEMP-9899G [Default], YEMP-9899F
3. Add promotion questions
YEMP-80799 [] |
Section: Employment |
[yemp_selfemp([Y5-LOOP4])]
== 1
COMMENT: R is self-employed
0 |
0 CONDITION DOES NOT APPLY |
1 |
1 CONDITION APPLIES |
If Answer = 1 Then GoTo YEMP-101101 |
Default
Next: YEMP-80799B
Lead-In: |
YEMP-58403 [Default] |
YEMP-80799B [] |
Section: Employment |
[YEMP_ASSIGNMT([Y5-LOOP4])]==3
COMMENT:
The job is an assignment job
If Answer = 1 Then GoTo YEMP-81300 |
Default
Next: YEMP-80799C
Lead-In: |
YEMP-80799 [Default] |
YEMP-80799C []
|
|
[yemp_curflag([Y5-LOOP4])]
== 1
COMMENT: R is currently working for this employer
0 |
0 CONDITION DOES NOT APPLY |
1 |
1 CONDITION APPLIES |
If Answer = 1 Then Go To YEMP-80799D
Default next:YEMP-80800 Lead in: 80799B [default] |
YEMP-80799D
Since [dli] have you experienced a promotion, a demotion, or any other type of position change? (INTERVIEWER: IF MORE THAN ONE, ASK ABOUT MOST RECENT CHANGE.)
1. Yes
0. No
If Answer=1, Go to YEMP-80799E
Default next: YEMP-80800
Lead in : YEMP-80799C [1:1]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YEMP-80799E
Was this a promotion, a demotion, or a position change?
1. Promotion
2. Demotion
3. Position change
Lead in YEMP-80799D [1:1]
Default next : YEMP-80799F
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YEMP-80799F
What month and year did you experience this [promotion/demotion/position change]?
Month ____ Year ______
Lead in YEMP-80799E [ 1, 2, 3]
Default next : YEMP-80800
YEMP-80800 [] |
Section: Employment |
Let's talk about [thisthattime3].
Default Next: YEMP-80900
Lead-In: |
YEMP- 80799F [default],YEMP-80799D [1:1] YEMP-80799C [default] |
Training
No changes.
Health
No changes.
SAQ1
1. Limit parent questions to biological and adoptive parents only.
2. Delete family rituals question.
3. Ask mental-health questions.
Marriage
Remove questions about prior marriages and extramarital children of previously reported partners. Intent is to continue asking of newly reported partners, and if possible of partners reported prior to Round 9 for whom we never collected these data, but not to recollect for partners asked in Round 9.
Fertility
Collect additional demographic information about the other biological parent of the respondent’s children. New questions are YFER-4971 through 4973; YFER-9010 through 9030.
Child Care (short version only)
1. Changed eligibility to include men as well as women with resident children age 7 or under. Add YCCA-101.
Income
1. Phasing respondents out of the parent’s income questions in section at age 25 and direct these respondents to include parental income in the question about income of other household members.
2. Relocation of Domains of Influence questions. Add YINC-498 and 499 at beginning of the section, before the existing introduction (YINC-500).
Assets
No design changes.
Program Participation
1. Add questions on receipt of Supplement Security Income (SSI) benefits, in addition to the existing questions that ask about other welfare including SSI benefits. Add two questions: YPRG-3250 and YPRG-30550. Modify YPRG-3300 and YPRG-29020.
SAQ2
1. Respondents eligible for puberty questions only if they had not been interviewed in Round 5 or later. Add YSAQ2-283R5, YSAQ2-285R5.
2. Add definition of “living together” that matches that in marriage/cohabitation section to the questions about dating partner. Added definitions to YSAQ2-713, YSAQ2-298A4.
3. Drop closeness, caring, and conflict questions for dating partner. YSAQ2-298D18, D19, D20, and possibly 298D21.
4. Drop “ever discussed” questions for dating partner. Drop YSAQ2-298D22, D23A, D23B, D22ALT, D23A-ALT, D23B-ALT.
5. Drop questions on sex and contraception with dating partner. Drop YSAQ2-298D25A, D25B1, D25B2, D25B3, D25C, D26, D27, D28, D29, D30, D32, D33, D34, D35, D36 6. 6. Drop question on whether dating only initials, mainly initials, multiple people when started dating initials. Drop YSAQ2-D24.
7. Change question about ever gone on date to whether gone on date since the date of last interview.
8. Drop question on age at first date: YSAQ2-291A, YSAQ2-292.
9. Change question on whether respondent ever had sex to question on whether respondent had sex since date of last interview: YSAQ2-299.
10. Ask about contraception at first sex only for those who were under 21 at first sex. Add age at first sex check, YSAQ2-301A. Drop YSAQ2-300H.
11. Drop questions on time of day and location of first sex. Drop YSAQ2-300C, 300D.
12. Drop questions on last sex: YSAQ2-303, 304, 305.
Best Friend/Domains of Influence
1. Discontinue best friend questions.
2. Domains of influence section to be discontinued and questions distributed throughout substantive sections rather than isolated and ask about actual past behavior rather than possible future behavior.
Political Participation (previously asked in Round 8)
Add YPOL-109 (machine check) for date of interview on or before Election Day. These respondents will skip YPOL-110 and receive YPOL-130A instead of YPOL-130.
The specific round 10 questions are shown below.
YPOL-100 [] |
Section: Political Participation |
These next questions are about politics in the United States.
Default Next: YPOL-105
Lead-In: |
YPOL-105 [] |
Section: Political Participation |
Some people seem to follow what's going on in government and public affairs most of the time, whether there's an election going on or not. Others aren't that interested. Would you say you follow what's going on in government and public affairs most of the time, some of the time, only now and then, or hardly at all?
Enter : |
|
|
1 MOST OF THE TIME |
|
2 SOME OF THE TIME |
|
3 ONLY NOW AND THEN |
|
4 HARDLY AT ALL |
Default
Next: YPOL-109
Lead-In: |
YPOL-100 [Default] |
[Current interview date] <= 11/06/2006
INTERVIEW IS TAKING PLACE ON OR BEFORE NOV 6, 2006.
1 YES
0 NO
If answer=1, go to YPOL-130A
Default next: YPOL-110
Lead in: YPOL-105 [Default]
YPOL-110 [] |
Section: Political Participation |
Let's talk about [the recent
election/the election last November]. In talking to people about
elections, we often find that a lot of people were not able to vote
because they weren't registered, they were sick, or they just didn't
have time. Which of the following statements best describes
you:
One, I did not vote (in the election [this/last]
November);
Two, I thought about voting this time, but
didn't;
Three, I usually vote, but didn't this time; or
Four,
I am sure I voted?
Enter : |
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 I DID NOT VOTE (IN THE ELECTION THIS NOVEMBER) |
|
2 I THOUGHT ABOUT VOTING THIS TIME, BUT DIDN'T |
|
3 I USUALLY VOTE, BUT DIDN'T THIS TIME |
|
4 I AM SURE I VOTED ...(Go To YLOC-050) |
|
5 R NOT ELIGIBLE TO VOTE ...(Go To YLOC-050) |
Default
Next: YPOL-130
Lead-In: |
YPOL-109 [Default] |
YPOL-130 [] |
Section: Political Participation |
Were you registered to vote in the November 2006 election?
Enter : |
|
|
1 YES |
|
0 NO |
Default
Next: YLOC-050
Lead-In: |
YPOL-110 [Default] |
YPOL-130A [] |
Section: Political Participation |
Are you registered to vote in the November 2006 election?
Enter : |
|
|
1 YES |
|
0 NO |
Default next YLOC-050
Lead in: YPOL-109 [1:1]
C. Proposed experiment on respondent reactions to types of subjective questions: New questionnaire section called “Tell Us What You Think.”
This section continues our efforts to improve respondents’ engagement with the NLSY97, especially in order to improve data quality and response rates. The section includes a four-mode experiment with end-of-interview questions. We wish to investigate whether different types of questions might imbue respondents with different feelings toward the NLSY97 interview and therefore their survey participation. In general, we hypothesize that subjective items, personal items, and unstructured items all increase respondent engagement and may be more enjoyable for respondents to answer. All of the items in the proposed modes are subjective (objective items dominate the remainder of the NLSY97 interview), but we vary the personal or impersonal and structured or unstructured characteristics in the proposed questions.
To select the sample, we will assign every NLSY97 sample member a cooperativeness score. The score will be based on rounds completed (fewer rounds = less cooperative), mode of most recent interview (phone = less cooperative), date of most recent interview (later in the field period = less cooperative), and efforts required at cooperation in the last three rounds (more effort = less cooperative). Stratifying by cooperativeness, we will assign respondents randomly to each of the four modes.
The first mode asks personal, subjective items in a structured interview format. These questions come from the General Social Survey, where they were asked in various combinations in 1982, 1988, 1996, and 1998. The questions have been used to study personal priorities, as inputs into models studying household dynamics and division of labor, and to characterize personal traits. See questions YTEL-1 to YTEL-4 below.
The second mode asks impersonal, subjective items also in a structured interview format. These questions were asked in the 1987 General Social Survey and other national Federally funded surveys. The questions are of interest to sociologists in understanding societal priorities and to political scientists investigating attitudes toward government. See questions YTEL-11 A through J below.
The third mode asks personal questions of a more conversational nature. They have been written specifically for administration in the NLSY97 questionnaire. NORC has conducted informal cognitive testing of these questions with a variety of individuals in the NLSY97 age group, as well as older individuals who are familiar with the content of the NLSY97 questionnaire. The fixed-coded item may be of interest to psychologists studying coping mechanisms and resilience. The open-ended items may assist the NLSY97 design committee in identifying additional topics for future interviews. See questions YTEL-21 and YTEL-22 below.
The final quarter of respondents will not answer any attitudinal items at the close of the interview.
In Round 10, the experiment will be evaluated using an Interviewer Remarks question about the respondent’s engagement with this section and two questions in the validation re-interview questionnaire asking about the respondent’s interest in the interview. These questions are shown below. The experiment will be evaluated further in Round 11 for each experimental mode based on response rates, data quality (for example, item nonresponse), and cooperativeness (as measured by returned phone calls, broken appointments, and attempts required to finalize the case).
The NLSY97 design committee works to maintain a constant respondent burden across rounds by balancing all additions to and subtractions from the questionnaire. The transition from Round 9 to Round 10 involves subtractions of the extended version of the Child Care section, reductions in the Self-Administered Questionnaire – Part I, fewer questions about the income of household members, and the elimination of the Best Friend/Domains of Influence section. The Round 10 questionnaire also includes additions to Round 9 content: The administration of labor force status questions from the Current Population Survey, a section on Political Participation, and the proposed “Tell Us What You Think” section. We estimate the “Tell Us What You Think” section’s average burden at 1.5 minutes. Altogether, design edits to the NLSY97 questionnaire from Round 9 to Round 10 represent no net change in total respondent burden.
Tell Us What You Think
/*if attitude_experiment=1 then go to YTEL-1; if attitude_experiment=2 then go to YTEL-11; if attitude_experiment=3 then go to YTEL-21; if attitude_experiment=4 then go to Locator Section;*/
default: YTEL-201
YTEL-1 These next questions are about how you think about spending time.
Suppose you could change the way you spend your time, spending more on some things and less on others. Which of these things on the following list would you like to spend more time on, which would you like to spend less time on, and which would you like to spend the same amount of time as now?
A. time in a paid job?
1 MORE TIME
2 LESS TIME
3 SAME AMOUNT OF TIME
B. time doing household work?
1 MORE TIME
2 LESS TIME
3 SAME AMOUNT OF TIME
C. time with your family?
1 MORE TIME
2 LESS TIME
3 SAME AMOUNT OF TIME
D. time with your friends?
1 MORE TIME
2 LESS TIME
3 SAME AMOUNT OF TIME
E. time in leisure activities?
1 MORE TIME
2 LESS TIME
3 SAME AMOUNT OF TIME
F. time to relax?
1 MORE TIME
2 LESS TIME
3 SAME AMOUNT OF TIME
YTEL-2. In general, how do you feel about your time- - would you say you always feel rushed even to do things you have to do, only sometimes feel rushed, or almost never feel rushed.
1 ALWAYS
2 SOMETIMES
3 ALMOST NEVER
YTEL-3. How often would you say you have time on your hands that you don't know what to do with--quite often, just now and then, or almost never?
1 QUITE OFTEN
2 JUST NOW AND THEN
3 ALMOST NEVER
YTEL-4. In general, do you find life exciting, pretty routine, or dull?
1 EXCITING
2 PRETTY ROUTINE
3 DULL
4 NO OPINION
Default: Locator Section
YTEL-11. These next questions are about how you would like society to work. On the whole, do you think it should or should not be the government's responsibility to …
A. Provide a job for everyone who wants one?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
B. Keep prices under control?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
C. Provide health care for the sick?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
D. Provide a decent standard of living for the old?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
E. Provide industry with the help it needs to grow?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
F. Provide a decent standard of living for the unemployed?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
G. Reduce income differences between the rich and poor?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
H. Give financial assistance to college students from low-income families?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
I. Provide decent housing for those who can't afford it?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
J. Impose strict laws to make industry do less damage to the environment?
1 DEFINITELY SHOULD BE
2 PROBABLY SHOULD BE
3 PROBABLY SHOULD NOT BE
4 DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT BE
Default: Locator section
YTEL-21. Now let’s wrap up our conversation. Thinking about your life since [MONTH/YEAR OF LAST INTERVIEW], would you say overall that this has been a very good time in your life, a pretty good time in your life, a pretty bad time in your life, or a very bad time in your life?
1 VERY GOOD TIME
2 PRETTY GOOD TIME
3 PRETTY BAD TIME
4 VERY BAD TIME
5 MIXED
YTEL-22a. Why is that?
Verbatim entry:
YTEL-22. Twenty years from now, what do you think you’ll remember most about your life between [MONTH/YEAR OF LAST INTERVIEW] and today?
Verbatim entry:
Default: Locator Section
New Interviewer Remarks question (inserted before existing section):
IR-50 In the end-of-interview experiment, this respondent answered (questions about spending time, how society should work, the most important recent event in his or her life, no subjective questions). What comments did the respondent have about this year’s questionnaire at the end of the interview?
1 Positive comments
2 Negative comments
3 Mixed comments
4 No comments
Default: IR-100
New Validation Questions
New1. How much do you care about the topics that are covered in the NLSY97 interview?
1 A great deal
2 Somewhat
3 Not very much
4 Not at all
New2. How well do you feel that the NLSY97 interview captures what’s important about you and your life?
1 Very well
2 Somewhat well
3 Not very well
3 Not at all
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | NLSY97 OMB Justification |
| Author | meisenheimer_j |
| Last Modified By | meisenheimer_j |
| File Modified | 2006-10-23 |
| File Created | 2006-10-23 |