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The Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary investigation of patterns, predictors, and consequences of midlife development in the areas of physical health, psychological well-being, and social responsibility. A description of the study and findings from it are available at http://www.midus.wisc.edu.

The first wave of the MIDUS study (MIDUS 1 or M1) collected survey data from a total of 7,108 participants. The baseline sample was comprised of individuals from four subsamples: (1) a national RDD (random digit dialing) sample (n=3,487); (2) oversamples from five metropolitan areas in the U.S. (n=757); (3) siblings of individuals from the RDD sample (n=950); and (4) a national RDD sample of twin pairs (n=1,914). All eligible participants were non-institutionalized, English-speaking adults in the coterminous United States, aged 25 to 74.

Data from the samples were collected primarily in 1995/96. The survey (Project 1) dataset contains responses from a 30-minute Phone interview and two 50-page Self-Administered Questionnaire (SAQ) instruments. Of the 7,108 respondents who completed the Phone interview, 6,325 also completed the SAQ.

This updated version of the study is comprised of three primary datasets:

Dataset 1, Main, Siblings, and Twin Data, contains responses from the main survey of 7,108 respondents. Respondents were asked to provide extensive information on their physical and mental health throughout their adult lives, and to assess the ways in which their lifestyles, including relationships and work-related demands, contributed to the conditions experienced. Those queried were asked to describe their histories of physical ailments, including heart-related conditions and cancer, as well as the treatment and/or lifestyle changes they went through as a result. A series of questions addressed alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drug use, and focused on history of use, regularity of use, attempts to quit, and how the use of those substances affected respondents' physical and mental well-being. Additional questions addressed respondents' sense of control over their health, their awareness of changes in their medical conditions, commitment to regular exercise and a healthy diet, experience with menopause, the decision-making process used to deal with health concerns, experiences with nontraditional remedies or therapies, and history of attending support groups. Respondents were asked to compare their overall well-being with that of their peers and to describe social, physical, and emotional characteristics typical of adults in their 20's, 40's, and 60's. Information on the work histories of respondents and their significant others was also elicited, with items covering the nature of their occupations, work-related physical and emotional demands, and how their personal health had correlated to their jobs. An additional series of questions focusing on childhood queried respondents regarding the presence/absence of their parents, religion, rules/punishments, love/affection, physical/verbal abuse, and the quality of their relationships with their parents and siblings. Respondents were also asked to consider their personal feelings of accomplishment, desire to learn, sense of control over their lives, interests, and hopes for the future.

The Datasets previously numbered 2 and 3 have been removed to avoid redundancies, and all datasets have been renumbered. Please refer to the readme file.

Dataset 2, Twin Screener Data, provides the first national sample of twin pairs ascertained randomly via the telephone.

Dataset 3, Coded Text Responses, describes how open-ended textual responses in the MIDUS 1 Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) and Self-Administered Questionnaire (SAQ) were transformed into categorical numeric codes. These codes are included in a stand-alone dataset containing only those cases (N=3,950) that contained text data in their responses.

Online Analysis Only: Datasets 1, 2, and 3 were merged together by the SU_ID variable to form "Merged Data with Weights (Online Analysis Only)" (Dataset 4) for online analysis capabilities.

MIDUS also maintains a Colectica portal, which allows users to interact with variables across waves and create customized subsets. Registration is required.

In 1995-1996, the MacArthur Midlife Research Network carried out a national survey of 7,108 Americans aged 25 to 74 (MIDLIFE IN THE UNITED STATES (MIDUS), 1995-1996 [ICPSR 2760]). The purpose of the study was to investigate the role of behavioral, psychological, and social factors in understanding age-related differences in physical and mental health. The study was innovative for its broad scientific scope, its diverse samples (which included twins and the siblings of main sample respondents), and its creative use of in-depth assessments in key areas (e.g., daily stress and cognitive functioning). A description of the study and findings from it are available at http://www.midus.wisc.edu. With support from the National Institute on Aging, a longitudinal follow-up of the original MIDUS samples: core sample (N = 3,487), metropolitan over-samples (N = 757), twins (N = 925 complete pairs), and siblings (N = 950), was conducted in 2004-2006. Guiding hypotheses for it, at the most general level, were that behavioral and psychosocial factors are consequential for physical and mental health. MIDUS 2 respondents were aged 35 to 86. Data collection largely repeated baseline assessments (e.g., phone interview and extensive self-administered questionnaire), with additional questions in selected areas (e.g., cognitive functioning, optimism and coping, stressful life events, and caregiving). To add refinements to MIDUS 2, an African American sample (N = 592) was recruited from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who participated in a personal interview and completed a questionnaire paralleling the above assessments. Survey data for the Milwaukee sample are available in a separate project [ICPSR 22840]. Also administered was a modified form of the mail questionnaire, via telephone, to respondents who did not complete a self-administered questionnaire.

In 2008, with funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), baseline survey data for the Survey of Midlife in Japan (MIDJA), April-September 2008 were collected from a probability sample of Japanese adults (N=1,027) aged 30 to 79 from the Tokyo metropolitan area (ICPSR 30822). In 2009-2010 biomarker data was obtained from a subset of these cases (ICPSR 34969).

The survey and biomarker measures obtained parallel those in a national longitudinal sample of Americans known as Midlife in the United States or MIDUS (ICPSR 2760: MIDUS 1 and ICPSR 4652: MIDUS 2). The central objective was to compare the Japanese sample (MIDJA) with the United States sample (MIDUS) to test hypotheses about the role of psychosocial factors in the health (broadly defined) of mid- and later-life adults in Japan and the United States.

In 2012, with additional support from NIA, a longitudinal follow-up of the MIDJA sample was completed. The data collection for this second wave (N=657) largely repeated the baseline assessments. The goal of the follow-up wave was to conduct comparisons of longitudinal data available from the Japanese sample (MIDJA) and the United States sample (MIDUS) to test the hypothesis about the role of psychosocial factors in predicting health changes (including biomarkers) in both cultural contexts. Cultural influences on age differences in health and well-being were also of interest.

Demographic and background information included gender, age, education, marital status, household composition, and income.

Formerly titled Marital Instability Over the Life Course (MIOLC -- ICPSR 3812), the Work and Family Life Study (WFLS) is a follow-up to the MIOLC. The MIOLC examined the causes of marital instability throughout the life course, and contains 6 waves of data collected between 1980 and 2000, which were gathered from married respondents who were between the ages of 19 and 55.

The Work and Family Life Study provides data for use in assessing: changes in marital quality between 1980 and 2000; the effects of family-of-origin characteristics and marital history on the physical and psychological health of respondents; and evaluating sample attrition, factors which lead to attrition, and attrition bias.

The WFLS collected new cross-sectional information (Part 2 -- Public Use Cross Section, N = 2,189) on married people 55 years of age and younger, using the same sampling procedures and interview questions that were used in the 1980 wave of the MIOLC. The Work and Family Life Study's Public Use Cross Section is the latest addition to the data collections. This new Public Use Cross Section studies the effects of wives' participation in the labor force on marriage and marital instability.

Also provided in this collection are the Public Use All Waves (Part 1, N = 2,034) and the Public Use Panel Wave 6 (Part 3, N = 1,031). The Public Use All Waves contains information from Waves I through VI, which were collected in 1980, 1983, 1987, 1992-1994, 1997, and 2000. Among the variables included in all six waves are age, sex, educational attainment, marital status and history, attitude toward divorce, number of children, religious affiliation, and income level. The Public Use Panel Wave 6 contains data on persons who only responded to wave 6 of the study.

Unique to this data collection, the Public Use Comparison file (Part 4, N = 11,741) contains information on respondents who would have been between the ages of 19 and 55 in 1980, married, and living with their spouse. These data evaluate potential bias from sample attrition in the panel study. The Comparison Sample is a special purpose sample and does not generalize to a normally defined population of ever married persons.

The Youth Development Study (YDS) was initiated as a school-based study of adolescent children and their parents to examine the consequences of formative experiences in adolescence for mental health, value formation, educational achievement, and multiple facets of behavioral adjustment. Particular attention was directed to the impacts of early work experience. Data were also obtained about parent-child and peer relationships and experiences in school. As the study continued, the focus shifted to adult development and attainment and, most recently, mid-life adjustment and health. This comprehensive longitudinal study now encompasses three generations: the initial cohort studied from adolescence to mid-life (G2), their parents (G1), and their adolescent children (G3). Data from three generations in the same families enable study of intergenerational relationships and differences in the experience of adolescence and transition to adulthood across parent and child cohorts. The YDS covers a wide range of topics of interest to sociologists, social psychologists, developmental psychologists, and life course scholars, including the development and impacts of agentic resources, socioeconomic attainment, processes of inter- and intra-generational mobility, objective and subjective work conditions, family relationships, intergenerational relationships, mental and physical health, and well-being.

In-school administration of paper surveys during the first four years of the study was supplemented by mailed surveys. Subsequent data collection took place entirely by mail, with 19 surveys conducted between 1988 and 2011. A final survey was conducted on-line in 2019. Survey data was obtained from the parents (G1) of this cohort during the first and fourth waves of the study (1988 and 1991). Surveys of the children (G3) began in 2009, continued in 2010 and 2011 (by mail) and in 2019-2020 (online).

The Youth Development Study measures a wide range of formative experiences and both psychological and behavioral variables, using survey methodology.

The G1 surveys obtained information about socioeconomic background as well as attitudes toward teenage employment, the parents' own employment as teenagers, their current work experiences, and educational expectations for their children.

The G2 surveys during the high school years included detailed questions about students' work and volunteer experiences, as well as experiences in their family, school, and peer groups, with an emphasis on the ways that working affected other life domains, mental health, and well-being. Shorter surveys containing many of the same topics were administered to students in 1992, 1993, and 1994, and included questions about current family and living arrangements. In 1995, a full survey was administered covering the wide range of topics included in previous surveys as well as information about career plans and life events that had occurred in the past five years. G2 Waves 9 through 19 (1997-2011) included many of the same questions contained in earlier surveys and additional sections that focused on the respondents' educational experiences, family relationships, sources of living expenses, and health and well-being. The most recent G2 survey (2019), administered on-line, included questions about support of aging parents. The YDS is unique in its coverage of both objective and subjective work experiences from adolescence to mid-life.

The topics covered by the G3 surveys are very similar to the G2 variables described above. Variables in each G2 and G3 wave are included in cross-wave codebooks, available at the Data Archive Codebook website.

For an overview of the Youth Development Study, see Mortimer, Jeylan T. (2012) "The Evolution, Contributions, and Prospects of the Youth Development Study: An Investigation in Life Course Social Psychology." Social Psychology Quarterly 75(1, March):5-27.