WLS Codebooks

Note: Codebooks contain frequency data from the private data release. For some variables, these differ from the frequencies in the public release. Variables that differ between the public and private versions include "(not available on public release)" as part of the variable description, or a note indicating the difference between the public and private versions.

Phone: Intertransfers

SIT - Intertransfer Module

OVERVIEW

In 1994 intertransfers contained a single question about all inheritances ever
received. In addition to this there was a series of questions about money
received from parents and others. There was an extensive series of questions
regarding transfers to children in this round including each of six categories
of reasons for transfers, and information about the three children to whom the
respondent gave the most money for this reason was recorded. Also in this
section were transfers to parents or in-laws, and transfers to others.

In the 2005 wave, intertransfers covered basic information on the largest
lifetime inheritance valued at $10,000 or more.  We obtained details of
inheritance for respondents in the RETFLAG=1 sample (a random 50%) and people
with an inheritance valued at $100,000 or more. The intertransfers section
queried from whom the respondents received this money, and, if the inheritance
was from a parent or grandparent, whether it was divided equally among the
respondent and their siblings. The inheritance section covers questions aimed
at these same respondents and their second largest lifetime inheritance as
well. Children exist in this last wave of intertranserfers as a separate source
of transfers.These transfers are currently tied to specific entities in the
children's roster. 

An unfolding framework was used to question respondents about transfers to
parents and in-laws, children, and others.  This new approach has implications
for the way data is collected. In 1994, six separate transfers to each child
(one transfer for each purpose) could have conceivably been collected.  In
2005, the instrument looped through children rather than through reasons.  For
each child, the section covers the total amount transferred and the primary
reason for the transfers, as well as information on the largest gift, and
whether the child would have been able to borrow that sum elsewhere. 

Added questions about the respondents' intended distribution of inter vivos
gifts among their children were included in the 2005 wave. A benefit to the
section is that these gifts are tied directly to entities from the children's
roster within the interview.  Transfers to parents and others remain largely
the same.  For transfers to "others" who turn out to be grandchildren, we
ascertained information on which of the respondent's own children was that
child's parent.

Charitable donations questions from 1994 remain in 2005. 

Unfolding brackets followed questions asking for dollar amounts in this
section. Associated with these items are four variables (identified by the
eight characters of the variable name) detailing the information collected in
the bracketing sequence.  The character "b" is associated with a summary
variable, "u" and "l" denote the upper and lower bounds and "e" indicates the
entry point into the bracketing sequence.  Upper bound of infinity is denoted
by a special missing code - ".i" in Stata, "I" in SAS and system missing in
ASCII datasets.  

During the interview, interviewers had a chance to leave notes with additional
information obtained from the respondents.  The WLS staff reviewed and
processed these notes using a standardized set of decision rules for each
section.  In many cases processing the notes resulted in changes to the coded
responses which created inconsistencies in the skip pattern of the CASES
instrument. While we put considerable effort into adjusting such discrepancies,
we could not eliminate them all. Occasionally, notes indicated problematic
cases due to the lack of specific information or, conversely, cases that
contained extra information that was important enough to retain. In such
instances we created a flag, identified by the character "f" and attached it to
the variable name, for the affected variable. 

A NOTE ON DIFFERENCES WITH GRADUATE RESPONDENT 2004 VARIABLES

As opposed to the Graduate CATI instrument, the one used for sibling interviews
did not have a preloaded roster of siblings.  Therefore, in questions on the
division of inheritances, interviews took down names of siblings that received
a larger share.  The WLS staff subsequently matched these names to entries in
the sibling roster.


BRIEF VARIABLE DESCRIPTIONS

CQ100R1-CQ110R2: Inheritances

CQ200R-CQ305R3:  Money received by respondent and spouse

CQ400R-CQ605R3:  Money given by respondent and spouse

CQ700R-CQ701R:   Charitable contributions


Note: See Cor 976 in Appendix L for variable creation details 

Imputed data for a subset of variables in this module are available in 
"Ancillary Data: Economic Imputations"