The study began in 1990, with the collaborative efforts of researchers from across the country. The project Principle Investigators are F. Thomas Juster and Robert T. Willis, Research Scientists and Professors of Economics. Subject matter includes demographics, health, family structure, job history, cognition, housing, income, and net worth. Innovative design on the study includes the use of bracketing response categories to reduce missing data, and the administration of experimental modules to random subsamples of the HRS respondents. These modules were included on both waves of data collection.
Data collection is scheduled every two years.
The first wave of data collection took place in 1992. The average interview length for Wave 1 was 90 minutes. A workshop focussing on early results of the Wave 1 data was held in September 1993. Papers presented at the workshop have been published in an HRS Working Paper series. An early results workshop on minority perspectives was held in 1995.