We want to reassure you that your confidentiality is protected by law.

The NLS data are collected under the following pledge of confidentiality: Due to the existence of PII in NLS data, there are various legal statutes, such as the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 and the Privacy Act of 1974 that protect the data. The NLS data include PII such as Social Security number, name, and address. Data from each round of data collection are available to the public about 12 months after the end of fielding. The NLSY79 was conducted annually from 1979 to 1994 and has been conducted biennially since 1994. Regular press releases of findings from the surveys occur to accompany the release of data from each round of data collection. The survey provides information on employment experiences, schooling, family background, social behavior, and other characteristics. The first round of annual interviews took place in 1997. These youths were ages 12 to 16 as of December 31, 1996. The NLSY97 consists of a nationally representative sample of nearly 9,000 youths who were born in the years 1980 to 1984.

Since 1994, children ages 15 and older complete an interview modeled on the NLSY79 questionnaire. For children aged 10 and older, information has been collected biennially since 1988 on a variety of factors including child-parent interaction, attitudes toward schooling, dating and friendship patterns, religious attendance, health, substance use, and home responsibilities. The survey includes assessments of each child as well as additional demographic and development information collected from either the mother or child. The size of the young adult sample depends on the number of children who reach age 15 in each survey round. The size of the NLSY79 child sample depends on the number of children born to female NLSY79 respondents, attrition over time, and the gradual aging of the children into the young adult sample. The NLSY79 Child and Young Adult Survey is a survey of all children born to NLSY79 female respondents.

The survey provides information on work and non-work experiences, training, schooling, income and assets, health conditions, and other characteristics. These respondents were ages 14 to 22 when first interviewed in 1979. The NLSY79 consists of a nationally representative sample of nearly 10,000 men and women who were born in the years 1957 to 1964 and living in the United States when the survey sample was selected in 1978. The NLS program currently includes three ongoing surveys, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), the NLSY79 Child and Young Adult Survey, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97). Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics sponsors the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) program to obtain information about how people respond to changes in the broader economy and how they make transitions through various stages of their lives. BLS - National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) Overview

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