Current Status and Attrition

As the NLS research project enters its 29th year, reinterviews will be conducted during 1995 with the combined Mature Women and Young Women samples. The special child school survey will be fielded during 1995; interviews with the NLSY and Children of the NLSY will resume in 1996. The 1993 NLSY survey marked the first time that computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) became the mode of interview for the full sample of NLSY respondents, culminating a 5-year effort of BLS, NORC and CHRR to improve the quality and timeliness of NLS data releases. Analyses of two CAPI experiments conducted during 1989 and 1990 suggest higher data quality, improvements in data transfer, and lower data processing costs for the CAPI-administered interviews (Baker and Bradburn 1992; Bradburn, Frankel, et al. 1992; Olsen 1991; Speizer and Dougherty 1991). The 1995 interviews with the NLS of Mature Women and Young Women will be conducted for the first time using a computer-assisted survey methods interviewing software developed for the Census Bureau.

A new NLS survey of young people ages 12 through 17 is being sponsored by the BLS with interviews scheduled to begin during 1996.

Current Retention Rates in the Original Cohorts and the NLSY79

Attrition in the 4 Original Cohorts

Retention rates as of the last interview of each cohort, when calculated as the percentage of base year respondents who were interviewed in any given survey year, are as follows: 58 percent (2,953) for the Mature Women in 1992; 62 percent (3,187) for the Young Women in 1993; 42 percent (2,092) for the Older Men in 1990; and 65 percent (3,398) for the Young Men in 1981. It should be noted that this procedure includes deceased and other out-of-scope respondents. The 1990 resurvey of the Older Men is unique in that, in addition to the 2,092 surviving men interviewed, 1,341 widows of deceased men and 865 other next-of-kin of decedents were interviewed for a total data collection completion rate of 86 percent of the original sample.

Data from Rhoton (1984) indicate that if out-of-scope respondents (e.g., deceased, institutionalized, and military enlistees) are excluded from the retention rate calculation, such rates for the Older Men (1990) would climb from 42 to 90 percent; increases for the other three cohorts would range from 2 to 6 percent. Affecting retention rates has been the policy of Census, in effect through the mid-1980s, of dropping from continued interviewing those respondents (1) who refused to be interviewed and (2) who were noninterviews for any reason for two consecutive years. Primary noninterview reasons from the latest survey year for which data are available include: 1992 Mature Women: deceased (545), dropped (215), and refusals (1,553); 1993 Young Women: deceased (107), dropped (258), and refusals (1,257); and 1981 Young Men: deceased (139), dropped (545), and refusals (866). Not interviewed in 1990 were 235 living Older Men; of these, 154 were refusals; no widow or next-of-kin was interviewed for 487 deceased men.

A recent analysis (Rhoton and Nagi 1991) of differential attrition among wealthy and non-wealthy subsamples of each of the four Original Cohorts found that non-wealthy respondents of each cohort showed a consistent tendency toward greater attrition. Among the three younger cohorts, almost all of the attrition and difference between wealthy and non-wealthy subsamples is accounted for by attrition among living sample members. The greatest differential in attrition among wealthy and non-wealthy occurred in the Older Men cohort where 20 percent of the wealthy subsample attrited due to death compared to 32 percent for the non-wealthy subsample.

Weights for all those interviewed have been adjusted at each interview to account for persons who were not interviewed and the overrepresentation of blacks in the sample. Analysis of data for each of the four cohorts indicates that the reweighting scheme that has been used to compensate for nonresponse has allowed the sample to remain representative (Parnes 1992; Rhoton 1984).

NLSY79 Attrition & Sample Drops

Retention rates for those NLSY respondents remaining eligible for interview have remained close to 90 percent during the sixteen years of interviews. Retention rate, expressed as a percentage, is calculated by dividing the number of respondents interviewed by the number of respondents remaining eligible for interview. All base year respondents, including those reported to be deceased, are considered eligible for interview except those who have been dropped from the sample. At the time of the 1994 survey, 8891 civilian and military respondents of the 9,964 eligible were interviewed for an overall retention rate of slightly over 89 percent.

Due to funding constraints, select respondents of the military and supplemental subsamples were dropped from interviewing at the beginning of the 1985 and 1991 surveys, respectively.

• After the 1984 surveys, interviewing ceased for 1,079 members of the military subsample; retained for continued interviewing were 201 respondents randomly selected from the entire military sample.
• Beginning with the 1991 survey, 1,643 economically disadvantaged white respondents from the supplemental sample are no longer being interviewed.

 

Last Modified Date: October 16, 2001