DOI: 10.3886/icpsr07439.v1
title: Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1968-1999: Annual Core Data
title: Version 1

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. Core data are collected annually, with each new wave of family data constituting a separate data file (Parts 2-27, 201-205). Data on individuals are contained in Part 1, Cross-Year Individual File, 1968-1993 (Waves 1-26) [Public Release II], and an early release of individual-level data through 1999 is included in Part 201, Cross-Year Individual File, 1968-1999 (Waves 1-31) [Public Release I]. 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. Content of a more sociological or psychological nature is also included in some waves of the study. Information gathered in the survey applies to the circumstances of the family unit as a whole (e.g., type of housing) or to particular persons in the family unit (e.g., age, earnings). While some information is collected about all individuals in the family unit, the greatest level of detail is ascertained for the primary adults heading the family unit. Core topics in the PSID include income sources and amounts, poverty status, public assistance in the form of food or housing, other financial matters (e.g., taxes, inter-household transfers), family structure and demographic measures (e.g., marital events, birth and adoptions, children forming households), labor market participation (e.g., employment status, vacation/sick time, occupation, industry, work experience), housing (e.g., own/rent, house value/rent payment, size), geographic mobility (e.g., when and why moved, where head of household grew up, all states head of household lived in), and socioeconomic background (e.g., education, ethnicity, religion, military service, parents' education, occupation, poverty status). Beginning in 1985, comprehensive retrospective fertility and marriage histories of individuals in the households were assembled.
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 United States 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.
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 United States 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 insure that there would be a sufficient number of low-income and, especially, Black low-income households to permit separate analyses of these populations.
description: These data are temporarily unavailable from ICPSR while we address some disclosure risk concerns. The data will be made available again soon once the disclosure risk has been mitigated. We appreciate your patience.The "original" PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS (PSID) (ICPSR 7439) 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). This collection, PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1968-1999: ANNUAL CORE DATA (ICPSR 7439), now contains only the cross-year individual files and family files.Parts 1-27 are all Public Release II (or final release) versions of the PSID data. Parts 201-205 are Public Release I (or early release) versions.The Public Release I files (Parts 201-205) are preliminary and should be ordered by experienced PSID users only. Documentation for these files is incomplete, and PSID staff will offer virtually no assistance with their use. ICPSR can offer only technical assistance in reading the files, and can provide no substantive advice on their use. These files will be replaced with the final versions of the data and documentation when they have been completed. All but the most experienced users are asked to wait until that time to order the data.Weights are provided for analysis. The weights for individuals are different from those for families.Users are encouraged to check the PSID Web site at http://www.isr.umich.edu/src/psid/ for updates to this collection. A complete bibliography of publications can also be accessed at the site.