Harmonizing the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth: Comparing the Generalizability of the NLSY-79C and NLSY97

• In Event: Causal methods in Developmental and Life-Course Criminology: Strategies to improve causal inference

Abstract

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) is a national random sample of individuals in the United States assessing a constellation of economic, behavioral, and other life-course related outcomes. During the initial 1979 data collection (NLSY-79) participants were between the ages of 14 and 21. In 1986, the biological children of female respondents in the NLSY-79 were interviewed, creating the NLSY-79 Child & Young Adult (NLSY-79C) cohort. More recently, another national random sample of adolescents began in 1997 (NLSY-97) replicating the NLSY-79. The NLSY-79 and -97 cohorts were designed to be nationally representative. It remains unclear, though, whether data collected in the NYSL79-C (i.e., children of participants in a representative sample) can also be considered nationally representative. Using both the NLSY-79C and -97 and comparing data from participants born during the same time periods in each sample, we estimate a series of biometric models to examine this question directly.

Authors

• Ana Carolina A. Stoffel, University of Mississippi

• Joseph Rodgers, Vanderbilt University

• Brian B. Boutwell, University of Mississippi, University of Mississippi Medical Center