Related Information

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Requesting Non-Public Data

Read this if you need non-publicly available data to answer your research question.

Data Conventions and Forms of WLS data

Wondering what all those negative values mean and how we name variables? Read this.

Need help understanding the difference between wide-form and long-form WLS data? Read this.

Scales within the WLS data

Information about the scales constructed from the WLS data. (Only includes measures before the 2011 wave.)

Retention and Response Rates

Various ways of calculating retention and response rates of WLS 1957-2011.

Harmonized Cross-Wave Marriage Roster

WLS staff combined information from each round of survey to create a marital history for each ever-married participant.

View documentation for this roster here.

View frequencies for the Graduate Roster and for the Sibling Roster

Documentation for Supplementary Data Available for download

Documentation for Data Available only by request

Search the Codebooks

Search for variables in the WLS dataset.

Issues?

Issues with the data or documentation? Please contact us if you notice any problems with the data or documentation.