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The Americans' Changing Lives (ACL) survey series is an ongoing, nationally representative, longitudinal study focusing especially on differences between Black and White Americans in middle and late life. These data constitute the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth waves in a panel survey covering a wide range of sociological, psychological, mental, and physical health items. Wave I of the study began in 1986 with a nation face-to-face survey of 3,617 adults ages 25 and up, with Black Americans and people aged 60 and over over-sampled at twice the rate of the others. Wave II constitutes face-to-face re-interviews in 1989 of those still alive. Survivors have been re-interviewed by telephone, and when necessary face-to-face, in 1994 (Wave III), 2001/02 (Wave IV), 2011 (Wave V), and 2019/21 (Wave VI).

Please note that for Wave VI, the majority of data collection occurred in 2019, with only a small subset (n=39) of participants surveyed in 2021.

ACL was designed and sought to investigate the following: (1) The ways in which a wide range of activities and social relationships that people engage in are broadly "productive," (2) how individuals adapt to acute life events and chronic stresses that threaten the maintenance of health, effective functioning, and productive activity, and (3) sociocultural variations in the nature, meaning, determinants, and consequences of productive activity and relationships. Among the topics covered are interpersonal relationships (spouse/partner, children, parents, friends), sources and levels of satisfaction, social interactions and leisure activities, traumatic life events (physical assault, serious illness, divorce, death of a loved one, financial or legal problems), perceptions of retirement, health behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, overweight, rest), and utilization of health care services (doctor visits, hospitalization, nursing home institutionalization, bed days). Also included are measures of physical health, psychological well-being, and indices referring to cognitive functioning.

Demographic information provided for individuals includes household composition, number of children and grandchildren, employment status, occupation and work history, income, family financial situation, religious beliefs and practices, ethnicity, race, education, sex, and region of residence.

The Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG), initiated in 1971, began as a survey of intergenerational relations among 300 three-generation California families with grandparents (then in their sixties), middle-aged parents (then in their early forties), and grandchildren (then aged 15 to 26). The study broadened in 1991 and now includes a fourth generation, the great-grandchildren of these same families.

The LSOG, with a fully elaborated generation-sequential design, allows comparisons of sets of aging parents and children at the same stage of life but during different historical periods. These comparisons make possible the investigation of the effects of social change on inter-generational solidarity or conflict across 35 years and four generations, as well as the effects of social change on the ability of families to buffer stressful life transitions (e.g., aging, divorce and remarriage, higher female labor force participation, changes in work and the economy, and possible weakening of family norms of obligation), and the effects of social change on the transmission of values, resources, and behaviors across generations.

The LSOG contains information on family structure, household composition, affectual solidarity and conflict, values, attitudes, behaviors, role importance, marital relationships, health and fitness, mental health and well-being, caregiving, leisure activities, and life events and concerns. Demographic variables include age, sex, income, employment status, marital status, socioeconomic history, education, religion, ethnicity, and military service.

The codebook for dataset 1 (DS1 Waves 1-7) is over 5000 pages long; due to complications related to the size of this document, the search function within the PDF is not yet enabled. Users seeking specific variables should use the search function within the PI Codebook, or search using the variables search tab/option from the study page.

This survey of adult management tasks began in 1995 as part of a larger national project (MIDUS) to investigate the patterns, predictors, and consequences of midlife development in the areas of physical health, psychological well-being, and social responsibility. Conducted in Boston, the survey was designed to examine how adults manage tasks in three domains of life -- work, family, and health. Further goals were to describe the subjective experience of goal attainment in midlife and to link it with objective measures of short-term longitudinal changes and cognitive functioning. During the national study, the Boston area was intentionally oversampled in order to create a subset to be used for in-depth study of management processes in midlife.

The Boston study began six months after the national study, and consisted of three interviews: a 30-minute phone interview followed by a 20-minute mail questionnaire (Time 1), a 90-minute in-person combination of cognitive tests, cortisol testing, photograph taking, and interview (Time 2), and a 30-minute phone interview (Time 3), conducted at six-month intervals. The focus was on projects related to family, work, and health that participants were working on during the period of the study. Each successive interview investigated participants' assessments of their progress in the present, recollection of six months in the past, and prediction six months into the future. Two waves of data collection were completed for this study. There were 151 respondents who participated in the first wave, 151 respondents who participated in both waves, and 26 additional respondents who participated in the second wave of data collection.

At Time 1, participants generated a list of two important family, work, and health tasks, then chose one of each as the most important in that domain. For each of the most important tasks, questions were asked about deadlines, whether participants were doing tasks because they had to do them, felt that they should do them, or chose to do them, and whether participants were doing tasks for themselves, others, or both. All six projects were ranked according to importance, and participants divided all their time into percentages spent on family, work, and health. The majority of questions on the mail questionnaire at Time 1 were taken from the Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI), the instrument created for the national study.

Respondents were asked to rate their control over health, to make assessments about present, past, and future health, to list any serious illnesses, and to indicate their physical health status. Study participants also rated their mental health, and discussed stressful life events in the last six months for self, spouse/significant other, parents, and children. Other questions focused on depression, mastery and constraints, community involvement, family, work, and life satisfaction. Scales used included the Ryff Well-Being Scales, the Eysenck Personality Inventory, the Staudinger and Baltes Wisdom Scale (1995), and the Ways of Coping Scale.

Time 2 was done in-person, and included a 50-minute series of cognitive tests followed by a 40-minute interview. The cognitive testing consisted of nine measures of cognitive ability completed in the following order: WAIS Forward Digit Span, WAIS Backward Digit Span, WAIS Vocabulary, counting backwards test, letter comparison test, dual-task test involving the counting backwards and letter comparison tests, WAIS Digit Symbol, Schaie-Thurston Letter Series, and Raven's Advanced Progressive Ma Matrices.

The Time 2 interview began with a series of questions asking about each of the family, work, and health tasks elicited from the participants in Time 1. Many questions were repeated from the MIDI including rating physical health, family life, work situation, and life overall, rating physical and mental health from poor to excellent, and a measure of stressful life events in the last six months for self, spouse/significant other, parents, and children. Participants were asked to rate how old they felt and how old they looked and to indicate their total yearly household income. Lastly, a series of open-ended questions asked about best and worst aspects of family, work, and health, how participants managed their daily life, the most challenging aspect of life and how it was managed, and what participants found most helpful in carrying out their daily life. Photographs were taken of participants at the conclusion of the interview.

Time 3 asked again about each of the most important family, work, and health tasks elicited from the participants in Time 1. Newly developed questions asked participants about ideas related to middle age, including when the participant believed middle age begins and ends, whether the participant was younger than, in, or older than middle age, the biggest changes in middle age, the best and worst aspects of middle age, whether the participant knew anyone who had had a "midlife crisis," and whether he or she would have or had had a midlife crisis. Participants were asked to rate how often they had problems and how often things went well with respect to a list of 26 domains, and how much stress and how much control they had in these domains. Lastly, participants were asked whether they had ever returned to a degree-oriented educational program after being out of school for five or more years, whether they were presently taking classes to further their education, and whether being a participant in the study had influenced the ways they thought about their family, work, and health projects.

This longitudinal data collection supplies information on the educational, vocational, and personal development of young people who were high school seniors in 1972 and examines the kinds of factors -- personal, familial, social, institutional, and cultural -- that may affect that development. The collection provides a broad spectrum of information on each student and covers areas such as ability, socioeconomic status, home background, community environment, ethnicity, significant others, current activity at time of survey, educational attainment, school experiences, school performance, work status, work performance and satisfaction, goal orientations, marriage and the family, and military experience.

Data collected in the base-year (1972) focus on factors relating to the student's personal/family background, education and work experiences, plans, aspirations, attitudes, and opinions. The first follow-up, which was conducted in 1973, offers information on the respondent's activity state (education, work, etc.), socioeconomic status, work and educational experience since leaving high school, future plans, and expectations. The second follow-up (1974) probes respondents on similar measures but is augmented by additional variables pertaining to work and education. The third follow-up (1976) contains additional items on graduate school application and entry, job supervision, sex roles, sex and race biases, and a subjective rating of high school experiences. The fourth follow-up (1979) offers data similar to the other follow-ups but includes some variables that were modified to elicit unique information. For the fifth follow-up, the sample members averaged 32 years of age and had been out of high school for 14 years. In addition to covering the same subject areas as the previous surveys, this follow-up includes additional questions on marital history, divorce, child support, and economic relationships in modern families.

Part 1 of this collection contains base-year data as well as data collected during four subsequent follow-ups undertaken in 1973, 1974, 1976, and 1979, while Part 11 contains fifth follow-up data for 1986. Part 2, the School File, contains information obtained from the respondent's high school and also from high school counselors. Data are available on school organization and enrollment, course offerings, special services and programs, library and other resources, time scheduling, and grading systems. Counselor information is supplied on work loads, counseling practices and facilities, experience with student financial aid programs, age, ethnicity, training, and experience. A supplementary School District Census File, Part 3, contains 1970 Census data tabulated by school district boundaries. In addition, the collection includes a FICE Code File and a CEEB Institutional Data Base File that can be used in conjunction with the student file to supply contextual information about respondents' colleges. The Institutional Data Base File offers data for colleges and universities on items such as enrollment, income and revenues, expenses, tuition and fees, and median student scores on standardized tests. Parts 7, 8, 9 and 10 contain transcript data from each postsecondary institution reported by sample members in the first through fourth follow-up surveys. Data are available for several types of postsecondary institutions, ranging from short-term vocational or occupational programs through major universities with graduate programs and professional schools. Data in these four rectangular files -- Student, Transcript, Term, and Course Files -- are organized to be used in combination hierarchically. Information is available on terms of attendance, fields of study, specific courses taken, and grades and credits earned. The Fifth Follow-Up Teaching Supplement (Parts 12) surveyed those members of the original 1972 sample who had obtained teaching certificates and/or who had teaching experience. Respondents were asked questions about their qualifications, experience, and attitudes toward teaching.

The Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (SEBAS) in Taiwan, 2000 and 2006, provides information regarding the health and well-being of older persons in Taiwan. Taiwan has undergone rapid demographic, social, and economic changes, becoming a highly urbanized and industrial society with a growing population of persons age 65 or older. SEBAS explores the relationship between life challenges and mental and physical health, the impact of social environment on the health and well-being of the elderly, as well as biological markers of health and stress. The study collected self-reports of physical, psychological, and social well-being, plus extensive clinical data based on medical examinations and laboratory analyses. Examination of health outcomes included chronic illnesses, functional status, psychological well-being, and cognitive function. Questions regarding life challenges focused on perceived stress, economic difficulties, security and safety, and the consequences of a major earthquake. Biological markers were used to identify cardiovascular risk factors, metabolic process measures, immune-system activity, the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis, and sympathetic nervous system activity. Two rounds of biomarker data collected in 2000 and 2006 were complemented by face-to-face interviews with the participants. Demographic and background variables included age, sex, education, ethnicity, occupation, and residency.

Additional information about the Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study can be found at the Georgetown University Center for Populations and Health Web site.

A Webinar describing the Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (SEBAS) was presented June 20, 2016. All interested users can access the webinar here.

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.