DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03202.v3
title: Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1968-1999: Supplemental Files
title: Version 3

description: 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. 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. In the early years, respondents were asked supplemental questions about their housing and neighborhood characteristics, child care, achievement motivation, job training, and retirement plans. In more recent years, special topics have included extensive supplements on education, military combat experience, health, kinship networks, and wealth. Supplemental datasets, each with detailed information about a particular topic collected over the years, are released separately from the core files (PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1968-1999: ANNUAL CORE DATA [ICPSR 7439]). Supplemental information on additional topics, such as flows of time and money, help among families and their friends, and motivation and efficacy, is gathered on an intermittent basis. Part 1, the 1985 Ego-Alter File, presents information on retrospective histories of marriage, childbirth, adoption, and substitute parenting. Part 2, the 1984-1987 Work History Supplement File, contains more detailed information on individual employment histories than is presented in the core files, including multiple job changes. Part 3, the Validation Study, was designed to assess the quality of cross-sectional and over-time economic data obtained in the PSID. The first wave of the Validation Study was conducted in 1983 and a second wave was conducted in 1987. For the Validation Study, the standard PSID questionnaire was administered to a sample drawn from a single large manufacturing firm. Questionnaire results were compared to company records to verify respondents' answers to questions such as hours worked, sick time taken, periods of unemployment, and changes of position within the company. Part 4, the Time and Money Transfers Supplement File, 1988, was designed to facilitate access to the detailed information collected in the 1988 wave of the PSID regarding transfers, in the form of time and money, between a PSID family unit and other persons during the 1987 calendar year. Part 5, the Marriage History File, 1985-1999 (Waves 18-31), was designed to facilitate access to detailed information collected in the 1985 through 1999 waves of the PSID regarding retrospective marriage histories. This file contains detailed information about marriages of people of marriage-eligible ages living in a PSID family at the time of the interview in any wave between 1985 and 1999. Each record contains all past-year and most-recent-year details about the timing and circumstances of a marriage for a specified individual. Variables in this file include the identifiers for each individual and his/her spouse, month and year of marriage/divorce/widowhood, order of the specific marriage, total number of marriages, and the most recent year wave when data were collected. Part 6, Relationship History File, 1968-1985 (Waves 1-18), presents information on pairs of individuals who were members of family units descended from a common, original family in the 1968 sample. The Relationship History File was designed to identify relationships that might not be evident using traditional data collection methods, which often define relationships in terms of the relationship of the individual to the head of household. There are two records for each pair (one record per individual). Variables include relationship, age, gender, and a set of residential status variables. This file is designed for use with Appendix C for Relationship History File (Part 7). Part 8, Childbirth and Adoption History File, 1985-1999 (Waves 18-31), was designed to facilitate access to detailed information collected in the 1985 through 1999 waves of the PSID regarding retrospective histories of childbirth and adoption. This file contains detailed information about any individual living with a PSID family at the time of the interview in any wave from 1985 through 1999 and his/her biological or adopted children. Each record contains all present-year and past-year details about the timing and circumstances of childbirth and adoption for an individual. Variables in this file include the identifiers for each parent and child, month and year of birth for both parent and child, birth order, birth weight and date of death for a child, year of most recent report, number of births/adoptions, etc. Data in this file are structured in a one-record-per-event format, with each record representing a specific childbirth or adoption event. Part 9, the Self-Administered Questionnaire Supplemental File, 1990 (Wave 23), provides information about the health care needs of older panel members in the core (but not Latino) sample. Each household head and wife aged 50 or older was mailed a self-administered questionnaire. Questions focused on the respondent's health, health care coverage, and long-term care coverage. Part 10, Telephone Health Care Cost Questionnaire Supplemental File, 1990 (Wave 23), was administered by telephone at the time of the main interview to heads and wives aged 65 or older. The questions in this supplement focused on detailed health care costs for eligible heads and wives. Data include separate cost and payment source information associated with every hospitalization or nursing home stay during the 12 months prior to the 1990 interview. Similar cost and payment data about outpatient surgery, other office visits, oral surgery, prescription medication, eyeglasses and hearing aids, and professional and nonprofessional home care were also collected. Some additional questions were included about help with domestic duties, both paid and unpaid, help with financial planning, and cash and noncash gifts. Part 11, the Parent Health Supplement, 1991 (Wave 24), is a subset of the Wave 24 data that supplies supplemental information concerning the health of the parents of the household head and wife. Parts 12-14 comprise the wealth supplemental files for 1984, 1989, and 1994. Part 12, Family Wealth Supplement Data, 1984 (Wave 17), and Part 13, Family Wealth Supplement Data, 1989 (Wave 22), were derived, respectively, from the Public Release II versions (final release versions) of Parts 18 and 19 of ICPSR study 7439, and Part 14, Family Wealth Supplement Data, 1994 (Wave 27), was derived from Part 202, Family File, 1994 (Wave 27), an early release version. The components of wealth were collected at the family level. Part 15, Estimating Risk Tolerance from the 1996 PSID, asked how willing employed respondents were to take jobs with different income prospects. Parts 16 and 17 focus on active saving and cover the time periods 1984-1989 and 1989-1994, respectively. Sequences in these files are intended to measure flows of money into and out of different assets such as putting money into or taking it out of the stock market, putting money into annuities or cashing them in. In combination with changes in the companion wealth components these measures can be used to study savings versus capital gains.
description: Weights are provided for analysis. Please refer to the ICPSR codebooks for additional information regarding the weight variables.
description: The sample is a combination of a representative cross-section of nearly 3,000 families selected from the University of Michigan Survey Research Center's (SRC's) master sampling frame and a subsample of about 1,900 low-income families previously interviewed by the Census Bureau for the Office of Economic Opportunity. The combined sample is appropriately weighted to be representative of all people in the United States. Heads of the same families have been interviewed each year since 1968, as have the heads of families containing members who were part of a 1968 household and later left to start households of their own or to join another household. Panel losses have been more than offset by the addition of these newly formed families, bringing the present sample size to near 7,000. The sample for Part 3, the Validation Study, was drawn from a single large manufacturing firm in the Detroit area.
description: Datasets:
description: Households that had at least one member of the noninstitutionalized population of the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. The portion of the sample called the SRC subsample, when taken by itself, was representative of the households in the coterminous United States in 1968. The second subsample consisted of the low-income nonelderly households sampled by the Census Bureau for the 1966-1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity. These households, drawn with unequal probabilities of selection that depended on geographic location, age, race, and income, were added to the sample to ensure that there would be a sufficient number of low-income and, especially, Black low-income households to permit separate analyses of these populations. Smallest Geographic Unit: nation
description: face-to-face interview; mail questionnaire; telephone interviewThe files in this data collection were originally included in PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS (ICPSR 7439), which has been broken out by ICPSR into three separate data collections: PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1968-1999: ANNUAL CORE DATA (ICPSR 7439), PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1968-1999: SUPPLEMENTAL FILES (ICPSR 3202), and PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1989-1990: LATINO SAMPLE (ICPSR 3203).Users are encouraged to check the PSID Web site for updates to this collection. A complete bibliography of publications can also be accessed at the site.