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The ongoing Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) provides a continuous flow of information on the buying habits of American consumers and also furnishes data to support periodic revisions of the Consumer Price Index. The survey consists of two separate components:

1. A quarterly Interview Survey in which each consumer unit in the sample is interviewed every three months over a 15-month period, and
2. A Diary Survey completed by the sample consumer units for two consecutive one-week periods.

The Interview Survey was designed to collect data on major items of expense, household characteristics, and income. The expenditures covered by the survey are those that respondents can recall fairly accurately for three months or longer. In general, these expenditures include relatively large purchases, such as those for property, or expenditures that occur on a fairly regular basis, such as rent, utilities, or insurance premiums. Excluded are nonprescription drugs, household supplies, and personal care items. Including global estimates on spending for food, it is estimated that about 90 to 95 percent of expenditures are covered in the Interview Survey.

The Detailed Expenditure Files that comprise this data collection were created from all the major expenditure sections of the Interview Survey questionnaires. These files contain more detailed expenditure records than those found in the Interview Survey data tapes. In addition, the Detailed Expenditure Files include family characteristics (FMLY) files and income and member characteristics (MEMB) files identical to those found in the Interview Survey.

The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS, formerly known as the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study) follows a cohort of nearly 5,000 children born in large, U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. The study oversampled births to unmarried couples; and, when weighted, the data are representative of births in large U.S. cities at the turn of the century. The FFCWS was originally designed to address four questions of great interest to researchers and policy makers:

1. What are the conditions and capabilities of unmarried parents, especially fathers?
2. What is the nature of the relationships between unmarried parents?
3. How do children born into these families fare?
4. How do policies and environmental conditions affect families and children?

The FFCWS consists of interviews with mothers, fathers, and/or primary caregivers at birth and again when children are ages 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, and 22. The parent interviews collected information on attitudes, relationships, parenting behavior, demographic characteristics, health (mental and physical), economic and employment status, neighborhood characteristics, and program participation. Beginning at age 9, children were interviewed directly (either during the home visit or on the telephone). The direct child interviews collected data on family relationships, home routines, schools, peers, and physical and mental health, as well as health behaviors.

A collaborative study of the FFCWS, the In-Home Longitudinal Study of Pre-School Aged Children (In-Home Study) collected data from a subset of the FFCWS Core respondents at the Year 3 and 5 follow-ups to ask how parental resources in the form of parental presence or absence, time, and money influence children under the age of 5. The In-Home Study collected information on a variety of domains of the child's environment, including: the physical environment (quality of housing, nutrition and food security, health care, adequacy of clothing and supervision) and parenting (parental discipline, parental attachment, and cognitive stimulation). In addition, the In-Home Study also collected information on several important child outcomes, including anthropometrics, child behaviors, and cognitive ability. This information was collected through interviews with the child's primary caregiver, and direct observation of the child's home environment and the child's interactions with his or her caregiver.

Similar activities were conducted during the Year 9 follow-up. At the Year 15 follow-up, a condensed set of home visit activities were conducted with a subsample of approximately 1,000 teens. Teens who participated in the In-Home Study were also invited to participate in a Sleep Study and were asked to wear an accelerometer on their non-dominant wrist for seven consecutive days to track their sleep (Sleep Actigraphy Data) and that day's behaviors and mood (Daily Sleep Actigraphy and Diary Survey Data).

An additional collaborative study collected data from the child care provider (Year 3) and teacher (Years 9 and 15) through mail-based surveys. Saliva samples were collected at Year 9 and 15 (Biomarker file and Polygenic Scores). The Study of Adolescent Neural Development (SAND) COVID Study began data collection in May 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It included online surveys with the young adult and their primary caregiver.

The FFCWS began its seventh wave of data collection in October 2020, around the focal child's 22nd birthday. Data collection and interviews continued through January 2024. The Year 22 wave included a young adult (YA) survey with the original focal child and a primary caregiver (PCG) survey. Data were also collected on the children of the original focal child (referred to as Generation 3, or G3).

In 2017, the FFCWS team announced the Fragile Families (FF) Challenge, a collaborative effort in which participants were tasked with using machine learning methods and FFCWS data (Baseline to Year 9) to build a model that would predict six key outcomes at Year 15. Materials used in the FF Challenge have been archived in this collection.

Documentation for these files is available on the FFCWS website under Data and Documentation. For details of updates made to the FFCWS data files, please see the project's Data Alerts page.

Data collection for the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01HD36916, R01HD39135, and R01HD40421, as well as a consortium of private foundations.

Below is the citation for use of the FFCWS data accessed through ICPSR. For information on additional citation requirements when using FFCWS in publications, please refer to this FAQ on the FFCWS project site.

The Survey of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior series (also known as the Surveys of Consumers) was undertaken to measure changes in consumer attitudes and expectations, to understand why such changes occur, and to evaluate how they relate to consumer decisions to save, borrow, or make discretionary purchases. The data regularly include the Index of Consumer Sentiment, the Index of Current Economic Conditions, and the Index of Consumer Expectations.

This data collection is one in a series of financial surveys of consumers conducted annually since 1946. In a nationally representative sample, the head of each family unit was interviewed. Starting in 1966, in order to examine the effect that increased car ownership was having on American families, the data collected in this series were organized so that they could be analyzed by both family unit and car unit. The 1966 data are based on car unit. Survey questions regarding automobiles included number of drivers and car owners in the family, make and model of each car, purchase method, car financing and installment debt, and expectations of car purchases in the coming year. Other questions in the 1966 survey covered the respondent's attitudes toward national economic conditions (e.g., the effect of Vietnam War involvement and relations with other communist countries on United States business) and price activity, as well as the respondent's own financial situation. Other questions examined the family unit head's occupation, and the nature and amount of the family's income, debts, liquid assets, changes in liquid assets, savings, investment preferences, and actual and expected purchases of major durables. In addition, the survey explored in detail the subject of housing, e.g., previous and present home ownership, value of respondent's dwelling, and mortgage information. Each respondent also was asked about unemployment, job history, hours of part- and full-time employment, and retirement plans. Personal data include age and education of head, household composition, and occupation.

The Survey of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior series (also known as the Surveys of Consumers) was undertaken to measure changes in consumer attitudes and expectations, to understand why such changes occur, and to evaluate how they relate to consumer decisions to save, borrow, or make discretionary purchases. The data regularly include the Index of Consumer Sentiment, the Index of Current Economic Conditions, and the Index of Consumer Expectations.

This data collection is one in a series of financial surveys of consumers conducted annually from 1946 to 1971. In a nationally representative sample, the head of each family unit was interviewed. Starting in 1966, in order to examine the effect that increased car ownership was having on American families, the data collected in this series were organized so that they could be analyzed by both family unit and car unit. The 1968 data are based on car unit. Survey questions regarding automobiles included number of drivers and car owners in the family, make and model of each car, purchase method, car financing and installment debt, and expectations of car purchases in the coming year. Other questions in the 1968 survey covered the respondent's attitudes toward national economic conditions (e.g., the effect of income tax, interest rates, the stock market, Vietnam War involvement, and relations with other communist countries on United States business) and price activity, as well as the respondent's own financial situation. Other questions examined the family unit head's occupation, and the nature and amount of the family's income, debts, liquid assets, changes in liquid assets, savings, investment preferences, and actual and expected purchases of major durables. In addition, the survey explored in detail the subject of housing, e.g., previous and present home ownership, value of respondent's dwelling, and mortgage information. Personal data include age and education of head, household composition, and occupation.

The National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), Wave 1 (1987-1988) is the first of three waves in a longitudinal survey that was designed to study the causes and consequences of changes happening in families and households within the United States. At a time when the range of family structures was becoming more and more diverse, this study permitted a close examination of the resulting family compositions and household operations. One adult per household was randomly selected as the primary respondent, and there was a total of 13,007 respondents. In addition to the main interview conducted with the primary respondent, a shorter, self-administered questionnaire was given to the spouse or cohabitating partner, and also administered to the householder if he or she was a relative of the primary respondent.

A considerable amount of life-history information was collected, such as the respondent's family living arrangements in childhood, departures and returns to the parental home, and histories of marriage, separation, divorce, cohabitation, adoption, child custody arrangements, and stepfamily relations. Respondents were also asked about the relationship of household members to each other and the quality of their relationships with their parents, children, and in-laws. Information on economic well-being was also collected, including earnings from wages, self-employment income, interest, dividends, investments, pensions, Social Security, public assistance, and child support/alimony. Demographic information collected includes sex, age, marital status, education, and employment.