Aughinbaugh, Alison. 2004. "The Impact of Attrition on the Children of the NLSY79." Journal of Human Resources 39(2): 536-563.

This paper examines the impact of attrition among the women of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and children in the NLSY79 Mother-Child Supplement (NLSY79-C). Attrition among the children is nonrandom with respect to mother's marital status, grandfather's completed schooling, and family income. These differences that are related to the probability of attrition do not appear to impact estimates of the effects of family income or maternal employment early in the child's life on either PPVT or BPI standard scores. However, the women who are not interviewed in any child-supplement year and the children for whom supplemental information is never collected appear to be the most disadvantaged. The omission of these children from the NLSY79-C may impact estimates of family characteristics on child outcomes, but because there are relatively few such children, the effects of their omission are likely to be small.

Alison Aughinbaugh is a research economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the policies of the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the views other BLS staff members. The author thanks Tom Mroz, Mike Horrigan, Frank Mott, Chuck Pierret, Donna Rothstein, and anonymous referees for useful comments. The author takes responsibility for all errors. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning October 2004 through September 2007 from Alison Aughinbaugh, 2 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Room 4945, Washington, DC 20212, aughinbaugh.alison@bls.gov.