RIDIR: Longitudinal Intergenerational Family Electronic Micro-Database (LIFE-M)

社会科学和公共政策中的一些最重要的问题涉及个人的生活和经历随着时间的推移发生了怎样的变化。然而，跨越19世纪末和20世纪的大多数数据都是横截面的--在某个时间点上有大量的个人。横断面数据限制了对经济和地理流动性、家庭的形成和解散以及不利事件、公共政策或家庭背景的长期影响的研究。这项提议旨在将生命记录数据转化为纵向、代际家庭电子微型数据库(LIFE-M)。LIFE-M全面涵盖1880年至1930年在美国出生的个人，包括具有代表性的男性和女性样本，将最多四代人的家庭网络联系起来，以及人口普查信息与健康、家庭背景和早期生活背景的衡量标准。LIFE-M能够全面研究个人和家庭的经济和地理流动性、家庭的形成和解散，以及不利事件、公共政策和家庭资源对经济和家庭进程的长期影响。LIFE-M是通过将数字化的VIA记录(出生、死亡和死亡证明)与十年一次的人口普查的历史记录联系起来构建的。收集数据的主要优势是能够对多代人的个人和家庭的大样本和亚样本进行全面的纵向分析。LIFE-M数据库将以用户友好的格式提供给研究人员和政策分析员使用。该项目对人口学、地理学、社会学和经济学的研究人员具有开创性的实用价值。此外，该项目对政策制定者和政策分析师非常有用，他们对了解美国20世纪的流动性和人口变化的历史背景感兴趣。

Some of the most important questions in social science and public policy relate to how individuals' lives and experiences have changed across time. However, most data spanning the late 19th and 20th centuries are cross-sectional -- large sets of individuals at one point in time. Cross-sectional data limit the study of economic and geographic mobility, family formation and dissolution, and the long-term impacts of adverse events, public policies, or family background. This proposal seeks to transform vital records data into the Longitudinal, Intergenerational Family Electronic Micro-Database (LIFE-M). LIFE-M comprehensively covers individuals born in the United States from 1880 to 1930, including representative samples of men and women, linking networks of families across up to four generations, and census information with measures of health, family background, and early life context. LIFE-M allows for the comprehensive study of the economic and geographic mobility of individuals and families, family formation and dissolution, and the long-term effects of adverse events, public policies, and family resources on economic and family processes. LIFE-M is constructed by linking digitized vita records (birth, death and mortality certificates) with historical records from decennial census. The major advantage of the data assembled is the ability to carry out comprehensive, longitudinal analyses of large samples and subsamples of individuals and families over multiple generations. The LIFE-M database will be made accessible in a user-friendly format for researchers and policy analysts to use. The project is of groundbreaking utility for researchers in demography, geography, sociology, and economics. In addition, the project is of great utility to policy makers and policy analysts interested in the historical context for understanding mobility and demographic change in the United States over the 20th century.