DATA COLLECTION AND EVALUATION FOR OLDER NLSY CHILDREN

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The primary objective of this project is to extend the NLSY young adult data collection in the years 2000 and 2002 to include children of the NLSY79 female respondents who have attained age 21 by those dates. A secondary objective is to evaluate alternate data collection modes for older youth who are both living in their parents home as well as residentially independent in the year 2000. The children of the female respondents in the NLSY have, with the support of the NICHD, biennially received a variety of age-appropriate cognitive and socioemotional assessments over the 1986 to 1996 (1998 forthcoming) period. The linking of these child test data with the wide range of maternal, family and child attributes, attitudes and behaviors which are available for the full life span of the NLSY, which was initiated in 1979, has permitted a large number of researchers in the areas of economics, sociology, child development and related disciplines to carry out a wide range of program and policy background and the socioemotional and intellectual development of children between infancy and middle adolescence. This has included research in topical areas such as the effect on female employment, childcare or family poverty status or access to welfare in the development of American Children. However, for a substantial portion of the research community, the more critical issue of interests, what is the subsequent connection between how well a youth has done on these assessments and subsequent adult success? From an event history perspective, what aspects of family background translate into preferable emotional and intellectual development; and how does family background both independently, and by way of enhancing a child's development, link with greater early adult "success" in the educational, family, and in particular, employment sphere? Since 1994, the NICHD has expanded their involvement in the NLSY data collection by supporting regular NLSY style interviews with the children who have attained age 15. This 1994 and 1996 data collection has and will continue to support research of the type described above for youth in later adolescence. However, funding limitations will not permit continued interviewing of youth age 21 and over. This will significant data collection censoring will severely limit research which could appropriately examine the importance of child and adolescent intellectual and socioemotional development on the success of the school to work transition. This proposal requests funds to interview many of these young adults as they pass through the critical analytical value in their own light. Additionally, we will carefully evaluate our results, including a careful exploration of "mode effects" in the year 2000 data collection and use the insights we gain to then develop what we view as an optimal questionnaire and optimal data collection procedures. This process will inform our subsequent efforts to seek additional funding from all appropriate sources to continue, in a cost- effective manner, what we view to be a high priority data collection effort.