IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/98081.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

After 40 Years, How Representative Are Labor Market Outcomes in the NLSY79?

Author

Abstract

In 1979, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) began following a group of US residents born between 1957 and 1964. It has continued to re-interview these same individuals for more than four decades. Despite this long sampling period, attrition remains modest. This paper shows that after 40 years of data collection, the remaining NLYS79 sample continues to be broadly representative of their national cohorts with regard to key labor market outcomes. For NLSY79 age cohorts, life-cycle profiles of employment, hours worked, and earnings are comparable to those in the Current Population Survey. Moreover, average lifetime earnings over the age range 25 to 55 closely align with the same measure in Social Security Administration data. Our results suggest that the NLSY79 can continue to provide useful data for economists and other social scientists studying life-cycle and lifetime labor market outcomes, including earnings inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Bick & Adam Blandin & Richard Rogerson, 2024. "After 40 Years, How Representative Are Labor Market Outcomes in the NLSY79?," Working Papers 2024-10, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised 16 Apr 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:98081
    DOI: 10.20955/wp.2024.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2024/2024-010.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.20955/wp.2024.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas MaCurdy & Thomas Mroz & R. Mark Gritz, 1998. "An Evaluation of the National Longitudinal Survey on Youth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(2), pages 345-436.
    2. Fatih Guvenen & Greg Kaplan & Jae Song & Justin Weidner, 2022. "Lifetime Earnings in the United States over Six Decades," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 446-479, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benson, Rebecca & von Hippel, Paul T. & Lynch, Jamie L., 2018. "Does more education cause lower BMI, or do lower-BMI individuals become more educated? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 370-377.
    2. Aizer, Anna, 2004. "Home alone: supervision after school and child behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1835-1848, August.
    3. Johanna Catherine Maclean, 2016. "Does Leaving School in an Economic Downturn Persistently Affect Body Weight? Evidence from Panel Data," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 122-148, January.
    4. Oleksandr Zhylyevskyy, 2012. "Spousal Conflict and Divorce," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 915-962.
    5. Alison Aughinbaugh, 2004. "The Impact of Attrition on the Children of the NLSY79," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    6. Buyi Wang & Richard Frank & Sherry Glied, 2023. "Lasting scars: The impact of depression in early adulthood on subsequent labor market outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(12), pages 2694-2708, December.
    7. Richard Audoly & Rory McGee & Sergio Ocampo & Gonzalo Paz-Pardo, 2024. "The Life-Cycle Dynamics of Wealth Mobility," Staff Reports 1097, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Graham, Bryan S. & Hahn, Jinyong & Poirier, Alexandre & Powell, James L., 2018. "A quantile correlated random coefficients panel data model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 206(2), pages 305-335.
    9. Lutz Hendricks & Oksana Leukhina, 2018. "The Return To College: Selection And Dropout Risk," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1077-1102, August.
    10. Richard Blundell & Christopher R. Bollinger & Charles Hokayem & James P. Ziliak, 2024. "Interpreting Cohort Profiles of Lifecycle Earnings Volatility," Working Papers 24-21, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    11. Deirdre Bloome, 2017. "Childhood Family Structure and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 541-569, April.
    12. Nicole Watson & Mark Wooden, 2011. "Re-engaging with Survey Non-respondents: The BHPS, SOEP and HILDA Survey Experience," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2011n02, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    13. Thomas, Duncan & Witoelar, Firman & Frankenberg, Elizabeth & Sikoki, Bondan & Strauss, John & Sumantri, Cecep & Suriastini, Wayan, 2012. "Cutting the costs of attrition: Results from the Indonesia Family Life Survey," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 108-123.
    14. Lutz Hendricks & Oksana Leukhina, 2017. "How Risky is College Investment?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 140-163, October.
    15. Eid, Jean & Overman, Henry G. & Puga, Diego & Turner, Matthew A., 2008. "Fat city: Questioning the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 385-404, March.
    16. Alexander Bick & Adam Blandin & Richard Rogerson, 2024. "Hours Worked and Lifetime Earnings Inequality," Working Papers 2024-024, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    17. MaCurdy, Thomas & Glick, David & Sherpa, Sonam & Nagavarapu, Sriniketh, 2024. "Reprint of: Profiling the plight of disconnected youth in America," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 243(1).
    18. Bryan S. Graham & Jinyong Hahn & Alexandre Poirier & James L. Powell, 2015. "Quantile regression with panel data," CeMMAP working papers CWP12/15, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    19. Nevo, Aviv, 2003. "Using Weights to Adjust for Sample Selection When Auxiliary Information Is Available," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 21(1), pages 43-52, January.
    20. Anna Aizzer, 2001. "Home Alone: Maternal Employment, Child Care and Adolescent Behavior," UCLA Economics Working Papers 807, UCLA Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    lifetime earnings and hours worked; life-cycle earnings and hours worked;

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:98081. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Scott St. Louis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.