COLUMBUS – The “Boyhood” of national surveys will continue tracking Americans from birth, through schooling, into the work force and after retirement, thanks to a $52 million federal contract renewal.
READ MORE: In the Columbus Dispatch
Ohio State’s National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth will now continue through 2019 after the Department of Labor re-upped funding for the nearly 50-year-old program.
Together, the three surveys have tracked more than 30,000 Americans and generated data used in nearly 9,000 published studies, books and dissertations worldwide.
The goal of the surveys is to understand the labor force and the lives of workers over time, said Randall Olsen, director of OSU’s Center for Human Resource Research, which administers the surveys.
“We can see how childhood behaviors, dreams, attitudes and expectations have played out in later life in so many different ways,” said Elizabeth Cooksey, incoming director of the Center for Human Resource Research.
Olsen said the surveys are some of the longest running of their breadth and scope, having tracked some people since 1979. He said understanding the labor market is key to understanding the economy, which is especially important now.
“What is the impact of the unfortunate labor market young people are facing now?” Olsen said. “If you want the answer, you need to do it the old fashioned way and track people’s lives.”