Life Course Wealth, Health, and Mortality in the PSID

University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Begun in 1968, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a longitudinal study of a representative sample of U.S. individuals and their families in which they reside. It emphasizes the dynamic aspects of economic and demographic behavior, but its content is broad, including sociological, psychological, and physical health measures. The PSID is the longest running national panel on family and individual dynamics, and it has consistently achieved unprecedented re-interview response rates of 96-98%. Due to an innovative design choice by the study's initial research planners, the PSID continues to follow and interview adult children of sample families when they leave home. By continually adding these young families, the study maintains a representative sample of the U.S. population, provides measures of social and health conditions over the full life course, and facilitates the study of intergenerational connections of wealth, socioeconomic status, and economic behavior. With the enhancements described in this proposal, the PSID is poised to become the only data ever collected on life course and multigenerational health in a long-term panel representative of the full U.S. population. To achieve these objectives, this application proposes to collect, process, and disseminate data for three main survey modules that would be included in the 2003 and 2005 interviews: (1) health and mortality, (2), wealth and active savings, and (3) pensions. These three modules represent both continuations of question sequences already introduced into the PSID and expansions of them.