DOI: 10.3886/icpsr24881.v3
title: Youth Development Study, 1988-2011 [St. Paul, Minnesota]
title: Version 3

description: The Youth Development Study was initiated to address the developmental and achievement-related consequences of employment during the adolescent years. Data collection began in the 1987-88 academic year with a panel of teenagers (G2) randomly selected from a list of 9th graders attending the St. Paul (Minnesota) Public Schools. G2 respondents have filled out surveys near-annually (exceptions are 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, and 2010), first administered in their high school classrooms (Waves 1 through 4) and subsequently by mail, through 2011 (Wave 19), when the respondents were 37 and 38 years old. The G2 surveys included detailed questions about students' work and volunteer experiences, as well as experiences in their family, school, and peer group, with an emphasis on the ways that working affected other life domains. Shorter surveys containing many of the same topics were administered to students in 1992, 1993, and 1994, and included questions about current family and living arrangements. In 1995, a full survey was administered covering the wide range of topics included in the previous surveys as well as information on career plans and life events that had occurred in the past five years. G2 Waves 9 through 15 (1997-2004) included many of the same questions contained in 1992-1994 surveys with addition sections that focused on the respondents' school and work experiences, family relationships such as marital status and children, education level and career preparation, how the respondent learned of his or her job and his or her level of satisfaction with it, and economic support questions including income level and living expenses. The parents of the G2 cohort (G1) were surveyed in the first and fourth waves of the study, when their G2 children were in the first year of high school and four years later. The G1 surveys obtained information about socioeconomic background as well as attitudes toward teenage employment, their own employment as teenagers, their experiences in their current employment, and educational expectations for their children. In 2008, the children of G2 who were age 11 and older were recruited (G3). The first data collection (a mailed survey) from G3 occurred in 2009, followed by the second in 2010, and the third in 2011, again including those children who turned 11, as well as older children who had not joined the study previously. The topics covered by the G3 surveys are very similar to the G2 topics listed above. Demographic variables include child and parent sex, age, race, education level, religious preference, frequency of religious attendance, marital status, employment status, income, language used at home, and whether respondents were born in the United States, as well as the sex and age of all household members.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Presence of Common Scales: The survey items were drawn from a variety of prior studies: Youth in Transition Study (Bachman), Quality of Employment Survey (Quinn and Staines), and the Study of Occupations (Kohn and Schooler). The survey contains standard mental health scales: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale Pearlin Mastery Scale depressive affect from the "Current Health Insurance Study Mental Health Battery" (Ware, et al.).
description: Response Rates: G2: In 1988, 64% of students invited agreed to participate (N = 1,139). By 1991, 92.3% of the non-Hmong panel and 79.8% of the Hmong panel were retained. By 1995, 77.2% of the non-Hmong panel were retained, compared to 51.9% for the Hmong panel. Response rates for waves 9 through 12 of the G2 survey are as follows (Hmong panel in parentheses): 78% (37.2%) (1997), 75.2% (37.2%) (1998), 71.9% (17.8%) (1999), and 75.2% (33.3%) (2000). Response rates for waves 13 through 15 of the G2 survey are as follows: 71.4% (33.3%) (2002), 70.4% (27.1%) (2003), and 72.8% (33.3%) (2004). Response rates for waves 16 through 19 of the G2 survey are as follows: 70.4% (31%) (2005), 70.6% (32.6%) (2007), 66.3% (32.6%) (2009), and 65.7% (33.6%) (2011). G1: In 1988, 96% of the participating non-Hmong youth were covered by at least one parent and 79% were covered by 1991. Among the Hmong youth, 69% were covered by at least one participating parent in 1988. G3: In 2009, 89.4% of 311 G3 respondents who consented to participate in the study completed their surveys. The G3 response rates for 2010 and 2011 are, respectively, 78.5% (n=349) and 76.8% (n=449). Response rates for linked G2 surveys (i.e., % of G3 respondents with at least one linked G2 survey) are 94.6% (n=207), 96.7% (n=227), and 92.5% (n=281) respectively.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: G1, Wave 1 (combined file) 
 DS2: G1, Wave 4 (combined file) 
 DS3: G2, Wave 1 (combined file) 
 DS4: G2, Wave 2 (combined file) 
 DS5: G2, Wave 3 (combined file) 
 DS6: G2, Wave 4 (combined file) 
 DS7: G2, Wave 5 (combined file) 
 DS8: G2, Wave 6 (combined file) 
 DS9: G2, Wave 7 (combined file) 
 DS10: G2, Wave 8 (combined file) 
 DS11: G2, Wave 9 (combined file) 
 DS12: G2, Wave 10 (combined file) 
 DS13: G2, Wave 11 (combined file) 
 DS14: G2, Wave 12 (combined file) 
 DS15: G2, Wave 13 (combined file) 
 DS16: G2, Wave 14 (combined file) 
 DS17: G2, Wave 15 (combined file) 
 DS18: G2, Wave 16 (main file) 
 DS19: G2, Wave 16 (occupational file) 
 DS20: G2, Wave 16 (volunteering file) 
 DS21: G2, Wave 16 (life history file) 
 DS22: G2, Wave 17 (main file) 
 DS23: G2, Wave 17 (occupational file) 
 DS24: G2, Wave 17 (life history file) 
 DS25: G2, Wave 18 (main file) 
 DS26: G2, Wave 18 (occupational file) 
 DS27: G2, Wave 18 (volunteering file) 
 DS28: G2, Wave 18 (life history file) 
 DS29: G2, Wave 19 (main file) 
 DS30: G2, Wave 19 (occupational file) 
 DS31: G2, Wave 19 (volunteering file) 
 DS32: G2, Wave 19 (life history file) 
 DS33: G3, Wave 1 (main file) 
 DS34: G3, Wave 1 (occupational file) 
 DS35: G3, Wave 1 (volunteering file) 
 DS36: G3, Wave 2 (main file) 
 DS37: G3, Wave 2 (occupational file) 
 DS38: G3, Wave 2 (volunteering file) 
 DS39: G3, Wave 3 (main file) 
 DS40: G3, Wave 3 (occupational file) 
 DS41: G3, Wave 3 (volunteering file)
description: mail questionnaire, on-site questionnaire 
Out of 1,139 participants, survey procedures differed for 129 Hmong youths due to language difficulties. Since the factor structure of standard mental health survey instruments differed for the Hmong and the non-Hmong youth, investigators should exercise caution in making comparisons. Separate analyses of Hmong and non-Hmong samples were conducted. The data regarding response are from the non-Hmong panel.
On-site questionnaires were administered to students in each of the four years of high school in the Spring (April 1988, April 1989, April 1990, April 1991) and continued through the school year. Students not available for two scheduled survey administrations in each school were sent surveys by mail. Parents of the participating students were surveyed by mail in 1988 and 1991, with the exception of the parents of Hmong students, who were not surveyed in 1991. From 1992 to 2004, with the exceptions of 1996 and 2001, students were resurveyed each Spring by mail.
Please see the ICPSR User Guide for a detailed listing of the contents of this collection, as well as the variables which have been dropped, masked, or recoded due to disclosure risk.
Parent and child files can be linked by the variable FAMID.
 Additional information on this study can be found at the Youth Development Study (YDS) website.
description: Students enrolled in the ninth grade in the St. Paul Public School District in Minnesota in the fall of 1987 (G2), their parents (G1), and their children (G3).
description: In the 1987-88 academic year, a panel of 1,139 teenagers (henceforth referred to as G2) was randomly selected from a list of 9th graders attending the St. Paul (Minnesota) Public Schools. At the time of the first survey in the Spring of 1988, most G2 respondents were 14 or 15 years old. G2 respondents have filled out surveys near-annually (exceptions are 1996, 2001, 2006, 2008, and 2010), first administered in their high school classrooms (Waves 1 through 4) and subsequently by mail, through 2011 (Wave 19), when the respondents were 37 and 38 years old. The parents of the G2 cohort (referred to as G1) were surveyed in the first and fourth waves of the study, when their G2 children were in the first year of high school and four years later. Data collection from G3 (the children of respondents in G2) occurred in 2009, 2010, and 2011.