In order to protect the identities of research participants, some variables are only available to approved project investigators in secure environments. A note in the codebooks identifies each of these variables. Geography, months of births and deaths, data about high school friends, relationships between sample members, and names of colleges are not available for public download. Many monetary values, height, weight, and body mass index are top and/or bottom coded to prevent identification of outliers. Researchers with a legitimate research interest in such non-public data may contact the WLS at wls@ssc.wisc.edu.

All of the downloadable data files are compressed in ZIP format. The order of the variables in the data files is the same as the order of the variables in the codebooks/documentation. The <93>complete<94> data sets contain the data for all three waves, and combine the files from 1957-77, 1992 phone and mail, and 1994 phone and mail into one data set. If a variable is not available due to non-interview, it will have the system missing value. For all SPSS portable save files: variable and value labels are declared, and the refused/not ascertained category is normally defined as missing. SAS permanent data sets have variable labels, and most refused/not ascertained declared as missing values. The STATA <93>datasets<94> contain variable and value labels and a missing declaration for the refused category. The variable names are in lower case in Stata and Stata is case sensitive.

Agreement

By submitting the following information, you agree to the aforementioned conditions of use of the data files.

Please enter the requested information in the area provided. When you have registered, you will be able to continue to the access page for the data.