Retention

Retention

The Number of Young Adult Interviews

Table 2 extends this interview repetition notion to the young adult component of the survey. Since the young adult interview has been ongoing only since 1994, the maximum number of young adult interviews possible by 2018 is thirteen. This maximum would be limited to young adults who are 43 or older as of the end of the 2018 calendar year. It should be recalled that young adults age 21 or over at the date of the 1998 interview were not interviewed in that year. This leads to a potential four-year interview gap, between 1996 and 2000, for these cases. Similarly, those who were not fielded in 2000, as part of the children aged 0 to 20 of 38% of minority oversample mothers not eligible in that round, have a four-year gap from 1998 to 2002 and will have missed either their last child round or a young adult round. From 2002 to 2008, the young adult sample includes all youth age 15 and over who were available to be interviewed. Beginning in 2010, Young Adult respondents over the age of 30 will be interviewed every four years. The interviewed sample is selected by age as of December 31 of the survey year, so that approximately half of the older young adults are eligible each round. Since 2010, young adults age 31-32, 35-36, 39-40, 43-44, etc. as of December 31 of the survey year have not been fielded. In Table 2, while the age references the end of 2018, a particular young adult may not have been interviewed in that year. Of the 8624 young adults included in Table 2, 6212 were fielded and 4965 were interviewed in 2018. Table 2 also shows that there are substantial numbers of young adults who have had at least six young adult interview points and a large number who have had five interviews as young adults since 1994. Among young adults who have completed six or more young adult interviews, more than 70% have completed every interview for which they were eligible.

Young Adult Assessment History. As can be seen in Table 2, most of the young adults have had a number of child assessment points prior to reaching age 15 and then, depending on their current age, between one and eleven Young Adult interviews since that date. The nature of the data collection changes in fundamental ways when a child transitions to being a young adult. Prior to 2016, children under age 15 were administered (or their mother completed) a variety of assessments. For children in this age range, the mother also provided a variety of information about the child's health, education, and selected other items. Beginning with the 1988 survey, children age ten and over self-administered a set of questions about their own behaviors and attitudes in a variety of domains, including education, family and peer interaction, normative and non-normative attitudes and behaviors. In 2016, no children were directly assessed, and mothers completed Mother Supplements for children ages 0 to 13. In 2018, only a small number of child health and schooling questions were asked of the mothers.

Starting in 1994, once the children reached 15, they completed the Young Adult interview designed to address most of the major dimensions of their lives: schooling, employment, family, peer interactions and issues of sexuality, and other behaviors and attitudesthat permit researchers to examine in context the experiences of these young adults in a holistic manner. Beginning in 2016, children ages 12 and up were included in the YA fielding, although the children age 12 and 13 answered significantly fewer questions than those 14 and older. A flow diagram that would cross the possible survey points, encompassing the period from 1986 to the present, would follow a child from preadolescent years, describing the child development process in some detail, parallel family and child behaviors and attitudes, and culminate in a detailed profile of later adolescent-early adult transitions to adulthood. Table 1 and Table 2 are designed to clarify the size of the sample that permits one to maximize the panel dimensions of the data set.

Table 2. Age of All Young Adults as of December 31st, 2018 by YA, Child, and Total Number of Interviews

  Young Adult Interviews

Child Interviews
Number of
Interviews
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8-9 9-13 Total   0-51 6 7 8
Age of YA                              
12-13 Years 13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  13   6 7 0 0
14-16 Years 7 77 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 84   7 34 43 0
17-18 Years 25 124 0 0  0 0 0 0 0 149   18 14 71 46
19-20 Years 17 34 191 0  0 0 0 0 0 242   22 25 147 48
21-22 Years 28 26 60 266  0 0 0 0 0 380   59 39 214 68
23-24 Years 12 19 34 74 324 0 0 0 0 463   77 62 234 90
25-26 Years 16 14 30 37 87 461 0 0 0 645   95 96 342 112
27-28 Years 17 27 25 44 65 110 495 0 0 783   133 141 374 135
29-30 Years 18 26 22 33 45 67 110 588 0 909   131 170 449 159
31-32 Years 14 20 28 38 49 96 129 553 1 928   159 205 503  61
33-34 Years 24 31 27 32 47 57 109 208 462 997   139  122  736  0
35-36 Years 23 16 31 39 49 73 102 216 431 980   265 715  0  0
>36 Years 35 59 68 57 85 116 157 254 1220  2051   2051  0  0  0
Total 249 473 516 620 751 980 1102 1819 2114  8624   3162 1630 3113 719
  8624 8624
                 
  Total Number of Interviews (YA and Child) Total        
Age of YA 1-5 6-7 8-9 10 11 12 13 14  15 16 17          
12-13 Years 0 13 0  0 0  0  0  0  0  0 0 13        
14-16 Years 1 10 73  0 0 0 0  0 0 0 0 84        
17-18 Years 8 14 86  41 0  0   0  0  0 0 149        
19-20 Years 8 12 48 134 40 0 0  0 0 0 0 242        
21-22 Years 15 24 58  54  173 56 0  0  0  0 0 380        
23-24 Years 13 18 51  41  80 197 63  0 0 0 463        
25-26 Years 16 22 49  27  57 95 293  86 0 0 645        
27-28 Years 14 22 52  46  53 78 145  273 100 0 0 783        
29-30 Years 17 22 43  23  40 59 87 164 334 120 0 909        
31-32 Years 11 24 48  39  47 73 111 176 358 41 0 928        
33-34 Years 15 23 48  29 46 68 62 123 193 372 18 997        
35-36 Years 15 41 59  41 63 73 118 199 306 63 2 980        
>36 Years 80 112 180  104 143 206 351 493 358  23 1 2051        
Total 213 357 795  579 742 905 1230 1514 1649  619 21 8624        
  8624          
 
1There are only 10 young adult respondents with no child interviews.