Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1968-1999: Annual Core Data

Résumé 0

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is an ongoing data collection effort begun in 1968 in an attempt to fill the need for a better understanding of the determinants of family income and its changes. Core data are collected annually, with each new wave of family data constituting a separate data file (Parts 2-27, 201-205). Data on individuals are contained in Part 1, Cross-Year Individual File, 1968-1993 (Waves 1-26) [Public Release II], and an early release of individual-level data through 1999 is included in Part 201, Cross-Year Individual File, 1968-1999 (Waves 1-31) [Public Release I]. The PSID has continued to trace individuals from the original national sample of approximately 4,800 households, whether those individuals are living in the same dwelling or with the same people. The investigators hoped to discover whether most short-term changes in economic status are due to forces outside the family or if they can be traced to something in the individual's own background or in the pattern of his or her thinking and behavior. The data can shed light on what causes family income to rise above or fall below the poverty line. In line with the theoretical model, the questions asked fall generally under the headings of economic status, economic behavior, demographics, and attitudes. Specifically, they deal with topics such as employment, income sources and amounts, housing, car ownership, food expenditures, transportation, do-it-yourself home maintenance and car repairs, education, disability, time use, family background, family composition changes, and residential location. Content of a more sociological or psychological nature is also included in some waves of the study. Information gathered in the survey applies to the circumstances of the family unit as a whole (e.g., type of housing) or to particular persons in the family unit (e.g., age, earnings). While some information is collected about all individuals in the family unit, the greatest level of detail is ascertained for the primary adults heading the family unit. Core topics in the PSID include income sources and amounts, poverty status, public assistance in the form of food or housing, other financial matters (e.g., taxes, inter-household transfers), family structure and demographic measures (e.g., marital events, birth and adoptions, children forming households), labor market participation (e.g., employment status, vacation/sick time, occupation, industry, work experience), housing (e.g., own/rent, house value/rent payment, size), geographic mobility (e.g., when and why moved, where head of household grew up, all states head of household lived in), and socioeconomic background (e.g., education, ethnicity, religion, military service, parents' education, occupation, poverty status). Beginning in 1985, comprehensive retrospective fertility and marriage histories of individuals in the households were assembled.