DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02911.v3
title: Midlife in the United States (MIDUS): Psychological Experiences Follow-Up Study, 1998
title: Version 3

description: The Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) data
collection was a collaborative, interdisciplinary investigation of
patterns, predictors, and consequences of midlife development in the
areas of physical health, psychological well-being, and social
responsibility. This component of the first MIDUS data collection was
designed to understand popular metaphors of personal turmoil and
change, such as the "midlife crisis," the "change of life," the "empty
nest syndrome," and more. The primary objective of the Psychological
Experiences Study was to explore how adults perceive psychological
change in their lives. The study used questions derived from John
Clausen's definition of "turning points" and other sources to collect
data on self-perceived psychological changes involving work, important
relationships, views about the self and dreams, beliefs about the
midlife crisis, and recent major life events and transitions. This
study was a random telephone follow-up of 724 respondents of the
original MIDUS random-digit-dial sample. Part 1 of this collection
consists of the quantitative data obtained from the telephone
interviews. Part 2 includes the open-ended responses to selected
questions from the telephone interviews.
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:
			   		Performed consistency checks.; Standardized missing values.; Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Response Rates: 
					The response rate was 82 percent of respondents
contacted for the follow-up study.
description: Datasets: 
					
						DS0: Study-Level Files
						DS1: Quantitative Data
						DS2: Open-Ended Response Data
description: Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Series
description: The noninstitutionalized, English-speaking population of
the coterminous United States aged 25 to 74.
description: The respondents to this study were first interviewed as
 part of the NATIONAL SURVEY OF MIDLIFE DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED
 STATES (MIDUS), 1995-1996 (ICPSR 2760). MIDUS was based on a
 nationally representative random-digit-dial (RDD) sample of
 noninstitutionalized, English-speaking adults, aged 25 to 74, selected
 from working telephone banks in the coterminous United States.
 Predesignated households were selected in random replicates,
 one-fourth of which included a special nonrespondent incentive
 component. Contact persons were informed that the survey was being
 carried out through the Harvard Medical School and that it was
 designed to study health and well-being during the middle years of
 life. After explaining the study to the informant, a household listing
 was generated of people in the age range of 25 to 74, and a random
 respondent was selected. Oversampling of older people and men was
 achieved by varying the probability of carrying out the interview at
 this stage as a joint function of the age and sex of the randomly
 selected respondent. No other person in the household was selected if
 the respondent did not complete the interview. This study consists of
a telephone follow-up of 724 respondents to the MIDUS RDD sample.