National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth 1979 Cohort

Research Question and Data Strategy

As a student of public policy, understanding the variability of income between different groups allows for researchers to deepen their understanding of the domestic economy. Obesity in the United States has become a catastrophic issue, and has manifested itself as an interesting topic to research when analyzing citizen’s income distributions. The research question for this report allows us to investigate the effects of obesity on income using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort or (NLSY79) is a longitudinal project that follows the lives of a sample of American youth born between 1957-1964. This data set was compiled through using many different surveying methods, and yielded over 9,000 respondents.

In order to answer the question, the researcher organized the data from the database through different steps.

“The cohort originally included 12,686 respondents ages 14-22 when first interviewed in 1979; after two subsamples were dropped, 9,964 respondents remain in the eligible samples. Data are now available from Round 1 (1979 survey year) to Round 25 (2012 survey year)” (National). This data was collected many different ways. The primary variables found within the main data set are derived directly from survey instruments, such as questionnaires, household interview forms, and so forth. The researchers organized the respondents based on race, body mass index, age, income, and many other variables. In regards to race, the respondents were separated into Black (or African American), Hispanic, and non-Black or Hispanic. The respondents that qualified was “obese” or had a body mass index of at least a value of thirty or higher were separated into a separate group that was specifically outlined for obese