As mentioned earlier in this document, BLS has undertaken a continuing redesign effort to examine the current content of the NLSY79 and provide direction for changes that may be appropriate as the respondents enter middle age. The 2014 instrument reflects a number of changes recommended by experts in various fields of social science and by our own internal review of the survey’s content. The major changes are described in this attachment. Additions to the questionnaire have been balanced by deletions of previous questions so that the overall time required to complete the survey should remain about the same as in 2012.
Main Youth Survey
Additions/Modifications
Additions
The round 26 questionnaire includes a new section on educational expenditures, as well as several personality inventory and locus-of-control scales.
Educational Expenditures. A module asking about spending on private secondary schools and college has been added for Round 26. All respondents (male and female) with children in the Young Adult age range (turning 15 sometime during the 2014 survey year) are asked a series of questions about each of those children. They are first asked if the child ever attended a private school for grades 9-12 and if so, for how many years (EDUCEXPEND_1 – EDUCEXPEND_3). Respondents are then asked to report how much in total was borrowed or paid for private school for that child, and how much each they, the child’s other parent, the child’s grandparents and other friends/relatives paid (EDCEXPEND_4 – EDUCEXPEND_7B).
If the child is at least 16 years old with a high school diploma or GED, the respondent is then asked a series of questions about college attendance, whether the child graduated with a bachelor’s degree, the name and location of the college, and how many years the child did attend or has been attending (EDUCEXPEND_8 – EDUCEXPEND_11). A series of questions is then asked about the total cost paid or borrowed for college by each the respondent, child’s other parent, child’s grandparents, the child himself/herself, and other relatives/friends (EDUCEXPEND_12 – EDUCEXPEND_15C). In addition, the respondent is asked the amount the respondent paid for the child’s living expenses when the child was not living with him/her. Comparable questions were asked about amounts paid by the child’s other parent and grandparents (EDUCEXPEND_16 – EDUCEXPEND_18).
Finally, respondents whose child attended college are asked if the child would have attended a more expensive college or attended longer if the family could have contributed more. Respondents whose child did not attend college are asked if that decision was influenced by the cost of college, whether the respondent believes the child would have attended if the family could have contributed to the paying the cost and whether the child was given any money that might otherwise have been used to pay for college expenses (EDUCEXPEND_20 – EDUCEXPEND_22).
By collecting data on how much respondents spent on each child’s secondary and post-secondary schooling, we hope to inform at least two important areas of research. One asks whether parents invest in their children (via secondary and postsecondary educational expenditures) in a manner that either compensates or reinforces child "endowments." This is an important question because it speaks to whether individual income inequality is reduced or increased by actions taken within families. A second question is whether divorce and remarriage cause children to be treated differently—e.g., whether fathers invest more intensively in co-residential children than in children with whom they do not reside. The NLSY79 is ideally suited for addressing both questions because "endowment measures" (early childhood skill assessments) are available for children who are Child/YA sample members, and because household composition, divorce, remarriage, etc. have been carefully tracked over time.
The module on educational expenditures was patterned after a 2001 mail-in survey fielded by the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). In designing this module, we received input from three external experts who have worked with the HRS data: Steven Haider (Michigan State University), Kathleen McGarry (UCLA), and Judith Seltzer (UCLA). We departed from the HRS module in order to (a) adjust for differences in interview mode; (b) adjust for the fact that not all children of NLSY79 respondents have completed the schooling in question; (c) simplify and improve the question wording in some instances; and (d) extend beyond the HRS questions by asking about expenditures made by noncustodial fathers and other family members.
Expectations (RETIRE_EXP_P2_E1 – RETIRE_EXP_P2_E9): We added eight questions designed to elicit respondents' "subjective probabilities" about eight well-defined outcomes related to retirement, inheritances, life expectancy, and health. Each question asks respondents to report a number between zero and 100 that represents their assessment of the likelihood of the outcome. This method of measuring expectations was pioneered by Charles Manski (Manski 2004) and has been widely used in social science research (Hurd 2009). We added these questions to enrich our existing efforts to learn about respondents' plans for retirement and expectations about the future. The eight questions were taken directly from the 2000 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) instrument; these and other "subjective probability" questions have been fielded regularly by the HRS from 1995 onward.
References:
Hurd, Michael D. 2009. "Subjective Probabilities in Household Surveys." Annual Review of Economics 1: 543-62.
Manski, Charles. 2004. "Measuring Expectations." Econometrica 72: 1329-76.
Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI10). Using a scale from 1-7, respondents are asked to judge how much they agree that pairs of words representing personality characteristics apply to them. The personality characteristics are the so-called "Big Five" traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to new ideas, and extroversion) that are widely used by psychologists based on factor analytic evidence that a minimum of five factors is needed to describe individuals’ personalities (Costa and McCrea 1992). We rely on a ten-item scale in light of evidence that it measures the Big Five adequately while taking relatively little interview time (Almlund et al. 2011; Gosling et al. 2003). The TIPI scale was included in the 2010 Young Adult instrument and in round 12 of the NLSY97.
References:
Almlund, Mathilde, Angela Lee Duckworth, James Heckman, and Tim Kautz. 2011. “Personality, Psychology, and Economics.” In Eric A. Hanushek, Stephen Machin and Ludger Woessmann (eds), Handbook of the Economics of Education, volume 4. Amsterdam: Elsevier B.V.
Costa, Paul T., Jr. and Robert R. McCrae. 1992. "Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Manual." Odessa FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Gosling, Samuel D., Peter J. Rentfrow and William B. Swann, Jr. 2003. "A Very Brief Measure of the Big-Five Personality Domains." Journal of Research in Personality 37: 504-28.
Rotter Locus of Control (ROTTER-INTRO – ROTTER-4B). Respondents are asked the same eight questions that were fielded in 1979. The only change is that the preamble has been shortened and re-worded to adjust for the fact that handcards are no longer used. The measure of "locus of control" or self-efficacy obtained by this scale has been widely used by researchers, many of whom has asked us to re-field the scale to determine how individuals' locus of control has changed over time.
Overall Life Satisfaction (LIFE_SATISFACTION). Respondents are asked their overall level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their lives on a scale from 1-7.
Administrative Modifications
Several administrative modifications have been made at the beginning of the Round 26 questionnaire. These will add in administering the interview efficiently and improve confidentiality practices.
Birthdate verification. The verification of the birthdate has been moved to directly follow the initial verification screen of the respondent’s name and city of residence. Respondents will now be explicitly informed that the purpose of the birthdate verification is to ensure that the correct respondent has been contacted, and interviewers will receive a warning screen when they have entered a birthdate in conflict with the birthdate of record. Unresolved discrepancies will result in the interviewer being instructed to terminate the interview at least temporarily to consult with a supervisor. In addition, the placement of the birthdate verification before the Household Interview module of the questionnaire will reduce further the possibility of any household information at all being revealed to a respondent whose identity is in question. To be clear, this is an extremely rare, low-risk event. However, the goal is to continue to look for any improvements that can be made to reassure respondents that their information is treated in as secure a fashion as possible.
Respondent Fee Notification. The fee structure for the Youth respondents includes a) the main respondent fee (the higher Early Bird fee or basic fee after the Early Bird window expires), b) if applicable, $10 per missed interviews up to $30 and c) $10 per Mother Supplement completed for each eligible child. In Round 26, screen has been added before the consent statement to allow interviewers to identify which main respondent fee is in effect as the interview begins. In addition, a fee for children eligible to trigger Mother Supplements will also be calculated and included on the preloaded information sheets. These amounts will be added at the beginning of the survey, which will take the burden off the interviewer to calculate the fee from all of the components. In the event that any additional Mother Supplement-eligible children are reported during the interview, the extra payment will be added to the initial amount and the respondent will be informed.
Consent Statement. The consent statement has been revised to better reflect the stage of life at which the respondents now find themselves. The previous consent statement referred to the desire to learn about respondents’ transitions from school to the labor force and starting families. Comments from interviewers indicated that it would be helpful if the statement was better represent the current content of the questionnaire that relates to employment, education and training, family/household dynamics, health and retirement preparation.
Streamlined Rostering and Other Content
The collection of rostered data in the Round 26 questionnaire has been streamlined in several sections. Rosters are generally employed to collect multiple pieces of information about a specific units of observation (for instance household members, employers and children).
A number of these rosters were programmed many years ago under somewhat different conditions. Interviewers in general were often not very experienced in computerized data collection. In addition, far more fluid information was still being collected on subjects like children when respondents (particularly female respondents) were still mostly in the middle of their child-bearing years. Finally, in order to facilitate the transition to Computer-Assisted Interviewing for respondents, interviewers and researchers, we sought to approximate the Paper and Pencil questionnaires in form.
To these ends, information on household members, employers and children has heretofore been collected largely in individual questions and then loaded onto the rosters. This strategy minimized interviewers’ contact with the roster itself and the potential for errors in the final data being caused by interviewers when large numbers of changes needed to be made.
Vast advancements in software technology and interviewer experience in the intervening years have brought us to a point at which the restructuring of the household, employer and child rostering makes sense. The Round 26 revisions update and simplify the collection of these data. While the same data items are being collected, the changes will improve the overall efficiency of the process and reduce respondent annoyance with apparent repetition of questionnaire items. The modifications are described below.
Household Interview. In the Round 26 questionnaire, interviewers will confirm all information for household members directly from the primary roster screen. Any changes that need to be made (deleting household members, adding household members, changing information for existing household members) will be identified in that screen. Interviewers will then be presented with appropriate screens to make specific types of changes, only if they have indicated that they need to be made. Likewise, the processes for updating information on household members, and adding and deleting members has been consolidated and is more efficient.
In previous rounds, respondents were directed through a separate series of individual questions about each household member. These questions were more time consuming to read than simply verifying information from a single roster screen. Several verification roster screens appeared at various intervals as well. The structure of the section gave the impression to respondents and interviewers that the section was highly repetitive; this appearance should be significantly reduced.
Migration History. Street addresses for each address change in the Migration History module will no longer be collected in Round 26. The quality of these street addresses for interim locations has always been lower than the current information collected in the Locator module. Because of this, the street addresses in the Migration History module have less utility and have never been geocoded. The city, state, zipcode and county of each location will still be collected.
On Jobs. Rostering in the Round 26 On Jobs module has been reconfigured using roughly the same approach used in the Household Interview and Fertility modules. Interviewers can identify a number of different kinds of changes they may need to make to the list of continuing employers from the previous round (changing an employer name, deleting an employer, adding a missing employer, etc.) on one screen. They are then directed to specific screens for only those changes they have confirmed need to be made. Once information on the continuing employers is confirmed, respondents will simply be asked for any other employment they have had since last interview. This is similar to the pattern of inquiry in the NLSY97 questionnaire. Only if a respondent adds one or more employers are they asked if they ever worked for those employers before and, if yes, presented with a list of previous employers. The new structure reduces substantially the number of rosters that essentially become unnecessary. This should reduce some of the confusion in past rounds as well as to whether and when to report a new employer.
In prior survey years, the On Jobs module was structured very similarly to the Paper and Pencil version of the module. Respondents were asked to first verify employer continuing from the date of last interview and step through several individual questions about each employer. If any changes were required, this could lead to several more rosters and small sets of individual questions. Respondents were then presented with a list of employers for whom they had worked during the last interview period, but with whom they were not active on the date of last interview. They were asked to verify that they had not returned to any of the employers. Despite the fact that the vast majority of respondents have not returned to these previous employers, a list of these past employers was read to each respondent who had any such employers listed. Interviewers were then required to delete each of these employers from a list individually. Finally, respondents were asked to report on a third set of employers (newly reported employers) that did not appear on either of the first two lists. The new approach will significantly streamline this section.
Hours Worked Per Week. This small set of up to four questions in the Round 26 Employer Supplement has been collapsed to collect the same information (hours worked per week total and hours worked at home, if any) in two questions.
Training Programs from Last Interview. Questions about training programs continuing from the last interview have been streamlined for Round 26 so that information that is present from the previous interview is not being re-reported. Information about employer and family sponsorship and grants and loans is collected at the time the program is first reported and will no longer be re-reported at the second interview point.
Fertility. Changes to the Round 26 Fertility rostering process for both biological and non-biological children are modeled on the changes in the Household Interview and On Jobs modules. Existing information is verified and necessary changes identified on a single initial screen. Interviewers are then presented with appropriate screens to make necessary updates and/or changes only if the interviewer indicated that those changes are necessary.
Similar to the Household Interview and On Jobs modules, respondents were formerly asked to verify information and add children in a manner that involved a number of individual questions being asked about each existing and new child, and several additional verification rosters. During the last nearly 30 years, there has been a great deal of effort expended in maintaining the accuracy of the biological child roster, given that the children of female respondents constitute a separate survey sample. Collecting data separately from the roster and loading the data later afforded an extra measure of control over the final roster content, with an eye toward reducing the data cleaning required in the production phase. As mentioned above, advancements in software technology, improvements in interviewer experience and the fact that the fertility of the female Youth sample is nearing an effective end point, make this an opportune time to streamline the rostering for the biological children.
Other Fertility-Related Modifications. In prior rounds, respondents were asked information about their biological children’s other natural parent that had already been collected previously. For Round 26, respondents will only be asked to verify and/or update information that was not collected in prior interviews. For instance, information no longer need be recollected on a child’s other natural parent who has previously been reported as deceased. Where known, the absence of a child’s other natural parent from the household will simply be confirmed from last round, rather than recollected in Round 26 with a date of departure.
The series of questions on further child-bearing expectations, birth control, abortions and other pregnancies since date of last interview has been updated for Round 26 as well. Questions asking respondents how many more children they plan to have have been eliminated completely. Female respondents who report being surgically sterilized or whose most recent interview occurred when they were over 48 years of age will no longer be asked:
whether they had an abortion since the last interview
whether they used contraception in the last month and what methods they used
if they have had any other pregnancies since the last interview (other than those resulting from live births)
Because all respondents will be over the age of 48 by the time of the Round 26 interview, only a small subset of females who have skipped interviews, whose last interview occurred when they were 48 or younger, and who have not reported being surgically sterilized will be asked these questions.
The few female respondents who do meet those conditions will be asked a condensed set of questions. These respondents will be asked about contraception use. In addition, they will be asked if they have had any other pregnancies since the last interview (other than those resulting in live births). If so, they are asked if any of those ended in abortion. Due to the extreme rarity of reports of abortions and multiple pregnancies between recent interviews, we anticipate very few respondents providing information to complete their fertility records through the age of 48.
In Round 26, male respondents who have not reported being surgically sterilized will still be asked:
if their spouses or partners are currently pregnant, if their spouse/partner is 48 or younger or if her age cannot be determined
questions on contraceptive use
Health Insurance Coverage. In the Round 26 questionnaire, the NLSY79 version of Q11-80B has been replaced with the question format from the NLSY97. This change is intended to clarify that the question concerns the primary source of health insurance, with the response categories being slightly modified from the previous NLSY79 categories as well. In addition, the NLSY97 follow-up question has been added to the Round 26 instrument as well as Q11-80B_1. Asking who else is covered by the respondent’s primary source of health insurance should eliminate the need to ask separate additional questions about the source of the spouse/partner’s and children’s health insurance coverage in some circumstances. When it is necessary to ask about the spouse/partner’s and children’s health insurance coverage, those questions (Q11-84B and Q11-88B) have also been changed to the NLSY97 question text and response categories.
CES-D Response Categories. The response categories for the CES-D scale items have been collapsed for Round 26. The categories used in previous rounds were devised for in-person interviewing situations when respondents could refer to hand cards with the choices and are not as workable when they must be read to respondents during phone interviews. The revised categories are:
None at all or less than 1 day
1-2 days
3-4 days
5-7 days
The previous set of categories were as follows:
Rarely/None of the time/1 Day
Some/A little of the time/1-2 Days
Occasionally/Moderate amount of the time/3-4 Days
Most/All of the time/5-7 Days
The revised response choices should not disturb the character of the data being collected.
Locator. The Round 26 Locator module has also been revised so that essentially all changes to locator information can be made by choosing fields on a single roster per respondent/contact. Formerly if the respondent indicated that certain fields required changes or updating, it was necessary to proceed through a number of fields to make the updates. In addition, drivers’ licenses will no longer be collected. In consultation with interviewers and other personnel at NORC, we learned that license numbers are not used in locating any more. This will eliminate an additional field of very sensitive identifying data that will not need to be stored.
Questions Asked Only for Respondents Not Asked in Previous Interview
A number of question modules are slotted to be asked in Round 26 only of respondents who were not interviewed in round 25 or another previous round that included the module. These include:
Highest Degree Ever Received (asked only of respondents not interviewed in Rounds 23, 24 or 25). In Round 23 (with follow-ups in Rounds 24 and 25), respondents were asked to report the highest degree they had ever received. In round 26, that follow-up will continue.
Religious preference (asked for new spouse/partners and respondents not interviewed in R25, with the following exceptions). In Round 25, several questions on religious preference and attendance were added. Prior to Round 25 similar questions about the respondent were last fielded in 2000 (Round 19). Users had requested that these questions be re-fielded to inform research on changing religious affiliation and church attendance over the life-course—a request consistent with our original design plan to re-field these questions on an occasional basis.
A closer examination of the respondent data in Round 25 data indicated that respondents were not necessarily reporting the denomination at the desired level of specificity in a follow-up question. It appears that the question was being asked in a way that did not make absolutely clear the level of detail being sought. In round 26, respondents reporting general protestant denominations in Round 25, without a further level of specificity will be given another chance to report a more specific denomination.
In addition, for both the questions asked of the respondent and the comparable questions asked about new spouses/partners, a small addition to the text will make it clear that the question seeks a more specific denomination within a general denomination.
Business Ownership (asked only of respondents not interviewed in Rounds 24 or 25). This extensive set of retrospective questions on lifetime business ownership was added for Round 24. To collect the retrospective for all respondents, the full set of questions will be asked in Round 26 for respondents not interviewed in Rounds 24 or 25.
This retrospective identifies all businesses owned by respondents since age 18 (BUSOWN-1 to BUSOWN-22), asks about businesses owned by family members (BUSOWN-23A to BUSOWN-24B), asks about patent applications (BUSOWN-25 to BUSOWN-28B) and asks respondents if they consider themselves to be entrepreneurs (BUSOWN-29). These questions are found in the business ownership section of the instrument.
For respondents who have already answered the entire business ownership retrospective, the employer supplement has been modified to follow-up on previously-reported, ongoing businesses and to track new businesses going forward. Information collected for newly-reported businesses includes:
when the business was established and when respondents acquired ownership (SES-BUSOWN-5 and SES-BUSOWN-6)
how and why the business was acquired (SES-BUSOWN-7 and SES-BUSOWN-8)
sources and amounts of money used for acquisition (SES-BUSOWN-10 and SES-BUSOWN-11)
characteristics of the business including legal classification (SES-BUSOWN-12)
nature of the business (SES-BUSOWN-13)
and size/scope of the business (SES-BUSOWN-14 through SES-BUSOWN-16)
Why respondents who are no longer working at the business stopped
whether respondents still maintain ownership in the business (SES-BUSOWN-17) and, if not, when and why ownership ended (SES-BUSOWN-18 and SES-BUSOWN-19)
whether the respondent had another job lined up after stopping work at the business, if applicable (SES-24 through SES-25). Note that these questions have been moved from earlier in the Employer Supplement where they have been for several previous rounds.
respondents’ current/final ownership share (SES-BUSOWN-20 and SES-BUSOWN-21)
whether the business is/was owned exclusively by family members (SES-BUSOWN-22)
for on-going businesses, whether respondents still own the business (SES-BUSOWN-17)
if respondent no longer has ownership, when and why ownership ended (SES-BUSOWN-18 and SES-BUSOWN-19)
respondents’ current/final ownership share (SES-BUSOWN-20 and BUSOWN-21)
whether the business is/was owned exclusively by family members (SES-BUSOWN-22)
Continuing these questions in Round 26 and beyond, will allow a uniform, longitudinal record of all businesses held by respondents since age 18 to be maintained.
The business ownership section was followed up in Round 25 with several questions for a subset of respondents who reported having owned “old” (not ongoing) businesses in Round 24 or 25. This follow-up section is part of a broader data creation task in which names of businesses and employers, start/stop dates, and other information are used to link each business reported retrospectively in the business ownership module with employers reported in earlier rounds of the NLSY79. For example, in Round 24 a respondent might have reported that he owned a business called Acme Construction from March 1988 to March 1994. During the 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994 interview, this same respondent is likely to have reported Acme Construction as his employer (or perhaps as one of multiple employers) while proceeding through the employer supplements in those survey years. Using company names (which are not available to public users) and other information, every attempt is being made to form linkage variables that will identify for users which previously-reported employer correspondents to which business reported in the business ownership module in Round 24 or 25. To assist with this linkage task, follow-up questions BUSOWN-MATCH-3A_1 through BUSOWN-MATCH-4 will be continued in Round 26 to try to establish a link between a given business and a particular employer reported in an earlier round. Comments will be solicited as well in order to clarify situations which remain unclear. This set of questions (along with the broader linkage task) is funded by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. These questions will be asked of the appropriate set of respondents who were either not interviewed in Round 25 or were part of a subset of those business-owning respondents who had an incorrect roster presented, which may have prevented the best opportunity for a link to be established.
Stock Options (asked only of respondents not interviewed in Rounds 24 or 25). In Round 24 we added a short series of questions on stock options (STOCK_OPTIONS_1 to STOCK_OPTIONS_10). These questions were not intended to become part of the longitudinal core but will be continued for respondents who have not yet answered them to obtain a complete record across the whole cohort.
Philanthropy (asked only of respondents not interviewed in Rounds 24 or 25). Round 24 included an extensive set of new questions on both volunteer activity and monetary donations to charitable causes (PHIL_1 to PHIL_18B). These questions will be asked of non-interviewed respondents to extend the record across the full sample.
Cognition (asked only of respondents not interviewed with their two-year birth cohort between Rounds 22 and 25). A modules on cognitive function was included between Rounds 22 and 25, administered by two-year birth cohorts as the respondents would have been turning 48 years of age. These questions included word recall and math logic exercises, which were asked in the 2002 HRS. Similar to the modules above, this section will be administered only to respondents who have not yet completed it so that we can obtain a cognition baseline for as many cohort members as possible.
Childhood health and adversity (asked only of respondents not interviewed in Round 25). In Round 25 we introduced three new questions on childhood health (Q11-RCH-HLTH-1 to Q11-RCH-HLTH-3) and four new questions on childhood adversity (Q11-RCH-HLTH-4 to Q11-RCH-HLTH-7). These will be repeated in round 26 for respondents not interviewed in round 25.
Traumatic Head Injury (asked only of respondents not interviewed in Round 25). In Round 25 we added a set of eight questions (Q11-HEADINJ-1 – Q11-HEADINJ-7) designed to identify respondents who have experienced a serious head injury or suffered a loss of smell. All respondents are asked if they ever suffered a serious head injury (Q11-HEADINJ-1) and how they rate their sense of smell (Q11-HEADINJ-7); only those respondents who report having had a serious head injury or loss of smell are asked additional questions in this module. Because traumatic head injury and loss of smell have been found in numerous studies to be linked to subsequent dementia, we added these questions to augment ongoing efforts to track respondents’ cognitive function as they advance into middle age and beyond. This set of questions, adapted from the Aging, Demographics and Memory Study (ADAMS), which is a supplement to the Health and Retirement Study, will be administered to respondents not interviewed in round 25.
Risk Preference (asked only of respondents not interviewed in Rounds 24 or 25). In Round 24, we fielded a set of questions on risk preference that included three questions from Rounds 15 and 20-22 (RISK_1 to RISK_3) and several new questions adopted from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (RISK_4 to RISK_5H). This expanded module was designed to be fielded on a one-time basis but is being continued for non-interviewed respondents to obtain a complete record for the full cohort.
Wills. In Round 25 we included a new set of questions on wills (WILL_1 to WILL_16). These questions are drawn from the 2006 wave of the Health and Retirement Study, and also have overlap with questions asked in the final rounds of the NLS Women. As with several sets of questions discussed above, this module will only be asked in Round 26 of respondents not interviewed in Round 25.
Financial Literacy and Practices (asked only of respondents not interviewed in Round 25). In Round 25 we introduced eight new questions on financial literacy and practices (FIN_LIT_1 to FIN_LIT_8), to be asked of all respondents. These questions ask respondents about their preparedness for financial emergencies, their ability to monitor financial matters, and their knowledge of core financial concepts. Three of these questions (FIN_LIT_4 to FIN_LIT_6) were originally asked in the Health and Retirement Study in 2004, and also appeared in Round 11 of the NLSY97; the remaining five questions in this module are taken from the Financial Capability Study. The module was designed with input from a member of the Technical Review Committee who is an expert on the collection and analysis of financial literacy data. This short module complements the new questions on wills and estates, and is consistent with our ongoing plans to learn more about respondents’ financial literacy, practices, and preparedness as they enter their 50s and begin planning in earnest for retirement; asking it for respondents not interviewed in round 25 will give us a fuller record for the NLSY79 cohort.
Deletions
Assets. After Round 19, we determined that it was unnecessary to ask an extended series of assets questions in every survey round. The assets module was excluded for Rounds 20, 22, and 24 and included in Rounds 21, 23 and 25. It will again be rotated out for Round 26, with the exception of the questions on debt (DEBT.1-DEBT.4) and personal finance (PS.1-PS.6).
Retirement Expectations. Questions asking the respondent at what age s/he is likely to retire and the probability that s/he will be working at 67, 65 and 62 have been eliminated for Round 26 (RETIRE_EXP_P2_3A – RETIRE_EXP_P2_3D). A small set of new expectations questions has been added. See above discussion under the subtitle “Additions”.
As noted above, the retrospective module on business ownership since age 18 and the sections on religious preference, highest degree ever received, stock options, philanthropy, cognition, childhood health and adversity, traumatic head injury, risk preference, wills and financial literacy and practices remain in Round 26 only so we can ask these questions of respondents who were not interviewed in Round 23, 24 or 25 (as indicated above). Respondents who answered these questions in in a previous round will skip them in Round 26.
Young Adult Survey
Most of the changes made are minor and reflect a) a need to provide more precision/clarification for respondents, based on reviewing interview recordings and b) a need to streamline the instrument to help move the interview along more quickly.
Household Interview
Added a 4th answer choice to INTRO, “R CONSENTS TO PARTICIPATE – PROXY INTERVIEW”. This is in response to field interviewer comments.
Added “friend” and “roommate/housemate” categories to the relationships list (HH2-15B) to reflect common categories not previously included.
Created new internal function (HH3-1A) to automatically handle certain residence types and hence lessen hoops for the interviewer to jump through.
Section 2: Family Background
Deleted Q2-3 through Q2-4i and replaced with new set of questions MIGR-1 through MIGR-8-LOOP-END. These questions are taken directly from the NLSY79 Main Youth questionnaire. Q2-4E has been eliminated so that the interviewer now only records the verbatim answer given by the respondent and does NOT code the answer while in the field. This change streamlines the interview and hence saves interview time
Modified wording on Q2-42D to read: "Do you consider yourself to be either a born-again or an evangelical Christian?" Many respondents thought that the question as previously worded was a “choose one”, rather than a yes/no question.
Changed second category to “Once a year or less” in answer choices for Q2-24, Q2-24C, Q2-35, and Q2-35A.
Added text substitution to Q2-33 and Q2-33A so that the year before the interview year is referenced.
Section 3: Dating and Relationship History
Modified Q3-1NB-1 to read “Does {oldsparname} consider {HIM_HERSELF} to be either a born-again or an evangelical Christian?” and Q3-13D to read “Does {^partners_name({PARTNER-LOOP})^} consider {HIM_HERSELF} to be either a born-again or an evangelical Christian?”
Q3-6AB modified to allow one decimal (e.g., one and a half years).
Added “IF VOLUNTEERED, LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP” to choices in Q3-49E.
Q3-51C modified to allow one decimal (e.g., one and a half years).
Modified Q3-65 to read “How frequently do you and your partner have arguments about the following...."
Modified the two “end” categories in Q3-75 and Q3-76 to be “Almost all of the time, Always” and “Almost never, Never” rather than “Almost all of the time” and “Never”.
Changed all year references in spouse wage section to past 12 months; changes made in WGSP-71A, WGSP-71B, WGSP-74U, WGSP-75B-1, WGSP-75J, WGSP-75Q-1, WGSP-75K, WGSP-75Q-2, WGSP-75Y, WGSP-76F-1, WGSP-75Z, WGSP-76F-2, WGSP-76N, WGSP-76P, WGSP-76Q, WGSP-76S, and WGSP-76T.
Section 4: Regular Schooling
Modified Q4-31B “How much time do you spend on homework each week” to allow decimal answers.
Created a modified pick list that has primary and secondary grades only for Q4-1A because this question is asked only of Young Adults ages 18 and younger who report being home schooled.
Created new question Q4-19AAA (What is the highest level of education that you have achieved to date?) to replace Q4-19 (What is the highest grade of regular school – that is elementary, school, middle school, high school, college, or graduate school – that you have completed and gotten credit for?) This new question and its associated pick list parallels how education attainment is asked in Add Health.
Created a modified pick list for Q4-2 (grade currently attending) and Q4-18A (highest grade ever attended) to parallel that of Q4-19AAA. Modified wording on both Q4-2 and Q4-18A to reflect new pick list.
Created new questions SCHLFIND-C, SCHLFIND-D, and SCHLFIND-E that are direct text entries for name, city and state of school currently attending. Answers to these questions will be coded after fielding which will improve the flow through the section and reduce the interview time. SCHLFIND-11 through SCHLFIND-18_000005 have therefore been deleted.
Created Q4-COLLAPPFIND-A, Q4-COLLAPPFIND-B, and Q4-COLLAPPFIND-C as direct text entries for college applied to and Q4-COLLFIND-A, Q4-COLLFIND-B, and Q4-COLLFIND-C for college attending/last attended. Again, these questions will be coded after fielding in order to improve the flow through the section and reduce interview time. Q4-COLLAPPFIND-11 through Q4-COLLAPPFIND-18 000004 and Q4-COLLFIND-11 through Q4-COLLFIND_000004 have therefore been deleted.
Deleted Q4-64 to save interview time and because we determined that coding here would be more accurately undertaken after fielding rather than during the interview.
Created Q4-73-A, a matrix question with a list of the six types of financial aid for which we used to ask separate yes/no questions. Created Q4-73-C, a matrix question with the two types of military financial aid we used to ask as separate questions of everyone in the financial aid sequence. Created Q4-73-B as a check to see if R has ever been in the military, so that only they will be asked Q4-73-C. Created Q4-73-D to ask about other forms of financial aid (comparable to Q4-73I in the old sequence but with slight rewording to flow better in the new sequence). Created Q4-73-E to collect the verbatim of what other types of financial aid were received). Deleted Q4-73A through Q4-73I. These changes are again being implemented to help interview flow and are in response to field interviewer concerns.
Section 7: On Jobs/Employer Supplements
Modified pick list for Q7-0K to account for a name change of the old employer. Added Q7-0KAA to collect the new employer name and Q7-0KAB to reset CURFLAG and return to appropriate branching.
Applied modified pick list to Q7-0O to have an option for updating the second old employer’s name. Added Q7-0OAA to collect the new employer name and Q7-0OAB to reset CURFLAG and return to appropriate branching.
Applied modified pick list to Q7-0S to have an option for updating the third old employer’s name. Added Q7-0SAA to collect the new employer name and Q7-0SAB to reset CURFLAG and return to appropriate branching.
In response to field interviewer concerns that some respondents have difficulty answering QES-56C “Are/were you employed by government, by a private company, a non-profit organization or are/were you self-employed or working in a family business?” we changed the wording to “Are/were you employed by government; by a privately-owned, for profit company; a non-profit organization; or are/were you self-employed or working in a family business?
Changed Q7-3 from a dummy screen into a pick one question to make sure we are adequately identifying the CPS employer for all respondents. Added Q7-3A, Q7-3B and Q7-3C to capture the appropriate employer based on the answer to Q7-3.
Added SES-1 through SES-19, a new module for self-employment, based on a subset of questions from the NLSY79 Main Youth questionnaire.
Section 13: Children in the household
Added interviewer instruction “IF NECESSARY, EXPLAIN TO THE RESPONDENT THAT WE ASK ABOUT EACH CHILD SEPARATELY BECAUSE QUESTIONS ARE AGE-BASED AND NOT ALL QUESTIONS ARE ASKED OF ALL CHILDREN”. This will help explain why questions are asked on a child by child basis, rather than in some sort of matrix format.
Section 14: Health
Within section on Asthma, moved Q14A-17 to be after Q14A-14 and simplified wording.
Created Q14-1AA to check for previously existing health conditions. All respondents who respond “yes” are then branched to new question Q14-1AE to verify whether they still have the previous condition(s). If they do, they are then branched to Q14-1AF, which is a new question to find out about additional new conditions. If they have new conditions they are then branched to Q14-1AH, which is another new question designed to collect information on these new health conditions.
Created Q14-2AA to integrate Q14-1A, Q14-1B and Q14-2A into one question. Deleted Q14-1A, Q14-1B and Q14-2A.
Q14-14G –added “Urgent Care facility” as a specific choice.
Added “disabled or chronically ill” to question text in Q14-CARE-4 to make sure respondents remember frame of reference.
Deleted Q14-11B because knowing the month and year of an accident/injury is not critical given that the time frame is the last 12 months.
Deleted Q14-11C because we determined that post-fielding coding would save interview time and be more accurate than coding by the interviewer during the interview.
Deleted Q14-D since answers given to Q14-11C_VERBATIM often contain duplicate information. Added "(INTERVIEWER, IF APPLICABLE ASK:) What injuries did you sustain?” to Q14-11C_VERBATIM.
Modified Q14-11-LOOP-END so that the maximum number of loops is three.
Modified Q14-40 to screen for ages 29/30 and 40+; those meeting these criteria will go into the relevant health module.
Note: the 40+ health module described here is a new section for 2014:
Added Q14-46C for those 40 and over – this question is the same as Q11-H50SF12-6 from the age 50 health module in the NLSY79
Created Q14-51A for those 40 and over – this question is the same as Q11-H50FL-2 in the NLSY79, except we chose not to include the “Run a mile” category.
Added Q14-53C for those females aged 40 and over to ask if they have had a mammogram in the past two years.
Added Q14-54C through Q12-54G to set up text fills for Q14-55 and Q14-55A so that respondents age 40 and over are asked about head trauma since age 30.
Added Q14-45E through Q14-45DD for those respondents aged 40 and over; this series is modelled after a series in the NLSY79 Age 50 health module but asks less details.
Modified wording on Q14-23, so that the extended list of examples is a read only if necessary text and that “your parent’s policy” is the last example.
Section 15: Income and Assets
Added text substitution to Q15-5, Q15-6, Q15-7, Q15U-3, Q15U-4A, Q15-18, Q15-20, Q15S-3, Q15S-4A, Q15S-5A, Q15-33H, Q15-33I, Q15-33LA, Q15-33M, Q15A-3, Q15A-4A, Q15A-5A, Q15-58, Q15-59, Q15-60, Q15-69, Q15-70, Q15—74, Q15-116 and Q15-141, so that the year before the interview year is referenced
Section 16: Attitudes
Respondents who take the health modules will also take the CES-D. All Young Adults ages 14-24 will also take the CES-D as in past rounds.
Respondents not interviewed in Round 25 will take the Pearlin, Rosenberg, and Risk-Taking scales.
In 2014, everyone will answer questions on women’s roles. These are all questions that have been asked in prior rounds.
The survey is currently programmed so that everyone is asked the TIPI questions. A random 25% of the sample will also be asked questions constituting the mini-IPIP. If results from our preliminary on-going investigations comparing the TIPI and the Mini IPIP from the 2012 survey suggest that one is clearly superior to the other, we will drop either the TIPI or the Mini-IPIP and ask all young adults questions from the same scale. The questions comprising the mini-IPIP will be split this round into two questions (Q16-9A and Q16-9B) due to problems in administration last survey round that resulted from having too many items in one long list.
Added Q16-10AA and Q16-10AAB to set up a text substitution that asks about “ever” experiencing major discrimination (Q16-10A through Q16-10J) or “since date of last interview” for those who have answered these questions previously.
Added Q16-8FA, a global life satisfaction item used in the RAND American Life Panel (ALP). All YAs will answer this question. This is also being added to the NLSY79 Main Youth survey
YASR
Added “biological” before “father” in YASR-3HG and YASR-4D to make sure respondents know to whom we are referring.
YASR-3GC – removed reference to “records” and added “CDs, DVDs” in its place.
Locator
Deleted Q17-3GA through Q17-3I_000001 as we will no longer be asking for Drivers License numbers
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Kincaid, Nora - BLS |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-23 |