DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04680.v1
title: National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, 1968-2003
title: Version 1

description: The National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women is one of six surveys, designed by the United States Department of Labor, comprising the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) Series. The original purpose of the survey was to study employment patterns of women in their teens and early 20s who were completing school, making initial career and job decisions, and starting families. The survey was first administered to 5,159 respondents by interviewers from the United States Census Bureau in 1968. The survey has been repeated a further 21 times, approximately every other year, between the years of 1968 and 2003. Unlike the two NLS male cohorts, which were abandoned by the early 1990s, the NLS of Young Women is an ongoing study. The survey queried respondents on 17 main subjects: work and nonwork experiences, work-related discrimination, training investments, schooling information, retirement status and plans, volunteer work and leisure-time activities, physical well-being, health care and health insurance, alcohol and cigarette use, attitudes, aspirations, and psychological well-being, geographic and environmental data, demographics and family background, marital and fertility histories, childcare arrangements, care of ill and disabled persons, household chores, and transfers. Respondents were asked to give detailed information about their occupation, class of worker, rate of pay, hours worked per week, job satisfaction, and benefits. Respondents who reported themselves as unemployed were asked questions regarding their job search including methods used to look for work, number of weeks spent looking for work, reasons for not looking for work, and number of weeks they spent out of the labor force. Respondents were also asked about work-related discrimination, specifically, whether the respondents had experienced discrimination based on age, race, religion, or sex at any time. The survey also collected information on the training experiences of the respondents such as whether the respondent had been enrolled in a vocational or commercial training program during high school, what type of training, how much time was spent in training, and whether the skills acquired had been used on a current job. Beginning with the 1980 survey, respondents were also asked about any on-the-job training (OJT) that they received. A series of questions was asked about their schooling including whether the respondent attended high school, whether the respondent obtained a diploma or GED, whether the respondent attended college, what field of study, what type of degree, and what amount of time was dedicated to college education. Respondents were asked about their retirement status and plans such as at what age they expected to stop working, eligibility for Social Security benefits, and the availability of an employer-sponsored pension plan. Respondents also gave information regarding the amount of time spent doing unpaid volunteer work and answered a single question about how they spent their time when they were doing housework or working for pay. Respondents were asked about their income and assets including sources of income, whether they or their spouses owned their own homes, other real estate, or automobiles, the total worth of those assets, savings accounts, United States savings bonds, other bonds, and stocks. Respondents were asked about their physical well-being, specifically, questions pertained to perceived changes in the respondents' health over time, any health-related problems, whether these problems were the result of work-related accidents, and whether they were exposed to a dangerous working environment. The survey also addressed alcohol and cigarette consumption during the past 12 months. In addition, respondents were asked a series of questions targeting respondents' attitudes, aspirations, and overall psychological well-being. Several geographic variables were included in the data, such as place of residence including Census division, South or non-South differentiation, and residence in a metropolitan statistical area. Other geographic variables include the respondent's previous places of residence as well as characteristics about the size of the labor force and unemployment rates for their current residence. There are several demographic variables including the respondents' race, nationality, date of birth, birthplace, and parents' educational and life status. Respondents were asked about their marital status, children, dependents, and differentiating from the male cohort surveys, fertility history. Questions focused on current marital status, dates, duration, and reason for the end of previous marriages, total number of children, number of adopted children, number of children living at home, ages of children, dates of birth, gender of children, and the timing of the respondent's marriage with respect to work, school, and the birth of her first child. Respondents were also asked to forecast how many children they thought they would have. Respondents were asked about child care arrangements including costs, number of hours during which child care was required, type of child care arrangements, attitudes regarding day care centers, and the effect of child care availability on her job search behavior. Respondents were asked a series of questions relating to the care of ill or disabled persons. Details were collected about whether the person cared for belonged to the household, the respondents' relationship to that person, and the total amount of time (hours) spent caring for the person. Respondents were asked about their responsibility for specific household chores including grocery shopping, child care, cooking, cleaning, and yard work, whether or not tasks were completed with help, and total amount of time spent on these chores. Finally, respondents were asked about transfers received from parents and given to children. Transfers mentioned included gifts, loans, financial support, inheritances, personal care, and household chores or errands.
description: Response Rates: Of the 5,533 young women identified, 5,159 (approximately 93 percent) participated in the 1968 survey.
description: telephone interview, paper and pencil interview (PAPI), computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) 
The data belonging to the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women was previously archived as part of the NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SURVEYS OF LABOR MARKET EXPERIENCES, 1966-1992 (ICPSR 7610). In efforts to make the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) Series data more usable, the six cohorts comprising the NLS have been reorganized so that data and documentation for each study can now be found under the following ICPSR study titles: NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SURVEY OF YOUTH, 1979 (ICPSR 4683), NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SURVEY OF YOUTH, 1997 (ICPSR 3959), NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SURVEY OF OLDER MEN, 1966-1990 (ICPSR 4675), NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SURVEY OF YOUNG MEN, 1967-1981 (ICPSR 4678), and NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SURVEY OF MATURE WOMEN, 1967-2003 (ICPSR 4681).
The original NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL SURVEYS OF LABOR MARKET EXPERIENCES (ICPSR 7610) data and documentation files remain available in their original form. Please consult the codebook for important errata for the NLS Young Women cohort.
Additional information pertaining to the NLS Young Women cohort can be found at the Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/nls/nlsorig.htm.
description: Young women aged 14 to 24 as of December 31, 1967, representing the civilian, noninstitutionalized population and residing in the United States.
description: A total of 5,533 young women were selected from the universe of potential respondents during household screenings and deemed eligible respondents.