Transition into Adulthood Supplement

An Introduction to the TAS

Over the past several decades, the U.S. and other countries have seen a lengthening of the period between childhood and adulthood—the “transition into adulthood.” Youth no longer move quickly from secondary education into the labor force and independent economic living. Based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), less than 50% of individuals will form their own independent family unit before they reach their mid-20s.

Scientists are becoming increasingly aware that the period between the ages of 18 and 28 years are critical for life span development. It is during this period that major investments are made in education, crucial decisions are made regarding partnering and childbearing, and careers are planned and initiated. For PSID, this means that important educational and occupational transitions are often made while young adults are still dependent on their parents and are not primary respondents themselves.

The “Transition into Adulthood Supplement” (TAS) is part of PSID and may include individuals from the PSID Child Development Supplement (CDS). Although PSID collects some information about everyone who is a co-resident member of each family in the study, considerably more information is collected on the Reference Person and Spouse Partner (R-S/P). The TAS is intended to fill in the gap of time and information collected about youth experiences and the first interview as a PSID R-S/P.

The launching of TAS in 2005 was motivated by recognition that these years are marked by choices, changes, and transitions that have profound life-long consequences, but would be missed by the sample design of the PSID prior to 2005. To bridge this gap, TAS was initially tied to the Original CDS cohort, which began with children ages 0-12 in 1997, and was launched in 2005 when the oldest members of the Original CDS cohort reached 18 to 20 years of age. TAS has subsequently been conducted in 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015. By the 2015 wave of TAS, all members of the Original CDS had reached adulthood and were eligible for at least one wave of TAS. In 2017, TAS was relaunched to capture information on the transition into adulthood all young adults in the PSID, not just those who participated in the Original CDS.

Based on current literature and theories guiding research on the adult transitional years, the TAS interview builds on the information collected from some of these young adults when they themselves were interviewed as children and adolescents in the CDS, and, at the same time, harmonized and coordinated with data to be collected on them when they are interviewed as adults in future waves of Core PSID.

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics is a longitudinal survey of a nationally-representative sample of U.S. families. Since 1968, PSID has collected data on family composition changes, housing and food expenditures, marriage and fertility histories, employment, income, wealth, time spent in housework, health, expenditures, philanthropy, and more. Over 100,000 people have ever participated in the panel, which includes up to seven generations within a family. PSID is the longest running panel on family dynamics, and is considered one of the most important data archives in the world. The PSID now is conducted biennially, primarily via telephone with data collection commencing in March and ending by December of odd-numbered years.

In 1997, PSID supplemented its main survey with collection of additional data on a cohort of 0-12 year- old children in the study and their parents. The objective of this supplement—the Original Child Development Supplement—was to provide researchers with comprehensive, nationally representative, and longitudinal data on children and their families with which to study the dynamic process of early human capital formation. Two additional waves of the Original CDS were conducted in 2002-2003 (CDS-II), when the children were 5-17 years of age, and in 2007-2008 (CDS-III) for children in the cohort who were under 18 years of age.

Within the context of family, neighborhood, and school environments, CDS gathered information about a broad array of developmental outcomes including (but not limited to) physical health, emotional well-being, cognitive skills, education achievement, and social relationships with family and peers. Each Original CDS child could have up to eight modules of data collected from three different family members (primary and secondary caregivers and the target child) and a school information source (teacher and/or school administrative data).

The Ongoing Child Development Supplement collects data on children’s health, development, and well-being within the children’s family and neighborhood context. In 2014, CDS was relaunched to collect data from all children in PSID households aged 0–17 years. Detailed information is collected on the same topics as in the Original CDS, including time diaries, assessments of reading and math skills, interviews with children’s primary caregivers and direct interviews with older children themselves. Because the CDS is a supplement to the PSID, an extensive amount of family demographic and economic data about the CDS child’s family is collected in PSID, providing more extensive family data than any other nationally-representative longitudinal survey of children and youth in the U.S.

Bridging the Gap Through the Original and Ongoing CDS, detailed information has been collected on participants during their childhood and adolescence. CDS youth will eventually become the future “active panel” of Core PSID when they move out of (or “split-off”) from their parents’ home and establish an independent household of their own. Under the current design of the TAS, CDS young adults will participate in TAS data collection until they reach age 28, regardless of whether they have become members of Core PSID. When they join Core PSID, they will participate in that study every other year from that point forward.

The Transition into Adulthood Supplement thus serves as a “bridge of information” between the rich data collected in the CDS on the years between birth and age 18 years, and the rich data collected in the PSID on the years after economic independence is established.

TAS Questionnaire Content

The TAS questionnaire comprises 10 sections, each of which represents a specific area of interview content. A summary of each section is provided below.

Section A: Community Engagement and Technology Use

Questions in Section A focus on involvement over the last 12 months in the community including volunteering and community service, group organizations, and sports participation, as well as the type of organization and frequency of participation. A question series on technology use asks about the access and ownership of cell phones, computers, tablets, and the internet. Frequency and type of technological use is also collected. Respondents living at home or away at college were asked all questions in this section; respondents living on their own were not asked questions about when they were widowed or when they were divorced, as these questions were asked in their 2017 Core PSID interview.

Beginning in TAS-2017: Questions A10a-A10e, which asked about internet use, were replaced by questions A17-A25, which gathered in depth information on the ownership of cell phones, smart phones, computers, tablets, types of internet use, and technological literacy.

Section B: Family Relationships, Personality, and Mental Health

Section B assesses the individual’s relationship with his or her parents. Respondents are also asked a series of questions which comprehensively assessed adult well-being in terms of emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Questions also included measures of self-rated levels of skill in areas such as leadership, intelligence, independence, confidence, and problem solving, as well as self-rated psychosocial measures about worries and discouragement.

The level of responsibility that the respondent assumes for living arrangements and money management including earning their own living, making rent or mortgage payments, paying their bills, and managing their personal finances is also assessed. Respondents were asked to rate their abilities to manage their money and solve day-to-day problems. Information about living arrangements during a typical school year and during the summer was also collected.

Respondents living at home or away at college were asked all questions in this section; respondents living on their own were not asked questions about when they were widowed or when they were divorced, as these questions were asked in their 2017 Core PSID interview.

Beginning in TAS-2017: Questions B6a-B6d about responsibility and C2d-C2f pertaining to worry were removed and questions B27a-B27k were added. These questions comprise the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, a “10 item scale that measures global self-worth by measuring both positive and negative feelings about the self.”

Section C: Interpersonal Relationships

This section obtained information about the current marital and cohabitation status of the individual and subjective evaluations of all romantic/intimate relationships through questions about living arrangements, general satisfaction with relationships, time spent with partner, future expectations of relationship duration, and the likelihood of marriage and divorce. Information was collected on past, present, and future childbearing and fertility expectations, gender roles, biological/adopted child rearing/family values, and parenting skills and experiences.

Respondents living at home or away at college were asked all questions in this section; respondents living on their own were not asked questions about when they were widowed or when they were divorced, as these questions were asked in their 2017 Core PSID interview.

Beginning in TAS-2017: This section was revised substantially to align more closely with measures of cohabitation, marriage, and sexual behavior collected in the National Survey of Family Growth. Questions C4-C11 were added to capture detailed dating information on cohabitation and marriage, while questions C20-23, C32-C34, and C42-C43 were added to obtain information on sexual experiences and pregnancy.

Section D: Employment, Military Service, and Time Use

Section D collected detailed information about current employment status and all types of employment and money-earning activities for the previous two years. Measures included salary/wages, hours, experience, and size and type of the employer, reasons for being unemployed and/or not working, as well as the methods and frequencies of job hunting. Moreover, detailed information was collected about service in any branch of the Armed Services, and self-rated satisfaction with military service was obtained.

Information about how individuals spent their time during the past 12 months was collected including time spent on leisure activities, computer/internet use, and community engagement. Certain items from the CDS Primary Caregiver Child file were asked, permitting time-series analysis of activity patterns in organized arts and sport, TV watching, reading, and computer use.

Beginning in TAS-2017: Question series D9a-D9h were added in connection to the 2017 Core PSID, asking questions about hours, weeks, and overtime worked. In addition, questions D77-D81 and D112-D123 were added to both TAS-2017 and PSID-2017 which asked about time spent working, shopping, doing housework, caring for children, caring for adults, volunteering, doing educational activities, and doing leisure activities, as well as stylized time use measures obtaining information on the types of activities done during work.

Section E: Past Year Income and Financial Help

Information was collected on income earned during the previous calendar year from multiple sources, including unemployment compensation, workers’ compensation, dividends, interest, trust funds, child support, welfare, as well as financial help received from parents and other relatives for daily living expenses, larger monetary gifts, and inheritances.

Respondents living with their parents or away at college are asked all questions in these sections; respondents living on their own were only asked the latter questions pertaining to financial help, gifts, and wealth because their income and business holdings information was gathered in their 2017 Core PSID interview.

Beginning in TAS-2017: Section E was expanded to include more detailed questions about financial help received from parents or relatives for housing, education, vehicles, and living expenses. In order to reduce missingness, bracketed amounts were asked in each of these categories to obtain a more accurate value of these types of financial help.

Section F: Wealth

A series of questions estimating the net value of automobiles, stocks and bonds, checking and savings accounts, life insurance policies, and any other assets and investments is asked. Information is also collected about student loans, credit card balances, and other debts.

Respondents living at home or away at college were asked all questions in this section; respondents living on their own were not asked questions about when they were widowed or when they were divorced, as these questions were asked in their 2017 Core PSID interview.

Beginning in TAS-2017: In Section F, questions pertaining to the Great Recession were removed

Section G: Education

A key marker of the transition into adulthood is attainment of post-secondary educational degrees, which, in turn, feeds into work plans and career aspirations.

In Section G, information is gathered about the amount, dates, and location of education, starting with high school completion or GED attainment, high school GPA, and experience with college entrance exams. Respondents are asked if they had ever attended or are currently attending college and, if not, the reason for not attending.

Beginning in TAS-2017: This section was streamlined to coordinate with the education section in the Core PSID, asking highest grade of education, degrees, certifications, and licenses obtained, and standardized tests.

Section H: Health

Section H includes a measure of self-rated overall health and whether they have ever been diagnosed with a series of chronic illnesses/conditions such as asthma, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, any mental health condition, and learning disabilities. Age when first diagnosed and limitations on normal daily activities that resulted from each condition was asked. The section includes a short series of questions about psychological distress (K6) during the past 30 days. These questions are also asked in the Core PSID instrument.

In Section H, questions were asked about routine visits to the doctor and dentist, maintenance of a healthy body weight, and engagement in a number of lifestyle practices such as exercising, eating balanced meals, tobacco use, binge drinking, the use of illegal drugs or misuse of prescription medicines, and unprotected sex.

For respondents living on their own as PSID R-S/Ps, the first part of the section was skipped and started with health behaviors to avoid repeating questions that are collected in the Core PSID interview.

There is no Section I in the TAS-2017 Questionnaire.

Beginning in TAS-2017: Section H included a new retrospective childhood health calendar and follow-up questions on the effects of childhood health conditions on schooling and other activities. Conditions include but are not limited to: asthma, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, ear problems, headaches, and more. New questions on drug use were also added, including personal history and frequency of vaping.

In addition to childhood health, questions about parental mental and physical health during different stages of childhood were ascertained. A set of questions on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) were also included in TAS-2017, which collect information on childhood physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect. The ACEs questions are also asked in the 2014 Childhood Retrospective Circumstances Study.

Section K: Discrimination and Peer Influence

Section K includes questions addressing everyday discrimination, peer influence, assault, risky behavior, and encounters with the law. Day-to-day encounters with discrimination are measured by asking about frequency of experiencing specific types of discrimination. If any experience is endorsed as happening more than once a year, the perceived reason for the discriminatory experience is asked.

Peer influence is assessed using a set of questions about characteristics of friends with respect to school and work-related activities, community involvement, and general outlook and attitudes about the future. The frequency of engaging in dangerous and risky behaviors over the prior six months is assessed included fighting, damaging property, and drunk driving. Incidents of arrest, probation, and jail time were measured separately through questions on when and why the offense(s) occurred. Respondents are also asked about prior assaults, and the age at which an assault happened.

Beginning in TAS-2017: Section K added streamlined questions about the reasons behind discrimination in daily life.

Section L: Religious and Spiritual Beliefs, Race and Ethnicity

Section L assesses current religious preferences and the importance of religion and spirituality in the respondent’s life, as well as obtaining information on race, ethnicity, and locations of ethnic origin.

Beginning in TAS-2017: Questions on religious preference and religiosity were modified to mirror the questions in the 2017 Core PSID. The race and ethnicity question included new response options, specifically Middle Eastern or North African, and also included follow up items on origin for Hispanics, Asians, Middle Eastern or North Africans, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders. These items on race/ethnicity were asked of all TAS-2017 respondents and were new this wave.