Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: A unique research opportunity.

Abstract

The data set known as Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (SLSY) offers unusual opportunuities for research on questions not easily purpued by developmental psychologists. This article provides a history of Children of the NLSY, describes the data set with special focus on the child outcome measures and a subset of maternal life history measures, highlights several of the research and policy relevant issues that may be addressed, and shows how the intersection of children's and mothers' lives may be studied in less static, more life-course oriented ways. Examplars are given in the topics of maternal employment and child care, adolescent pregnancy and child rearing, divorce, povert, and multigenerational parenting