After 40 Years, How Representative Are Labor Market Outcomes in the NLSY79?

Bick, Alexander; Blandin, Adam; Rogerson, Richard

doi:10.20955/r.2025.02

Journal Article

After 40 Years, How Representative Are Labor Market Outcomes in the NLSY79?

Abstract: In 1979, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) began following a group of U.S. residents born between 1957 and 1964 and has continued to reinterview these same individuals for more than four decades. Despite this long sampling period, attrition remains modest. This article shows that after 40 years of data collection, the remaining NLSY79 sample continues to be broadly representative of their national cohorts regarding key labor market outcomes. For NLSY79 age cohorts, life-cycle profiles of employment, hours worked, and earnings are comparable to those in the Current Population Survey. Moreover, the distribution of lifetime earnings over the age range 25 to 55 closely aligns with the distribution found in Social Security Administration data. Our results suggest that the NLSY79 can continue to provide useful data for economists and other social scientists studying life-cycle and lifetime labor market outcomes, including earnings inequality.

Keywords: labor market outcomes; lifetime earnings;

JEL Classification: E24; J22; J31;

https://doi.org/10.20955/r.2025.02