Latest Information from the NLS

This release includes data from 1997 through 2021 (Rounds 1-20). To access public data, use the NLS Investigator.

Check out the latest BLS news release Number of Jobs, Labor Market Experience, Marital Status, and Health for those Born 1957-1964 covering the NLSY79 data for rounds 1-29. This news update is available on the BLS Economic News Release page.

This release includes data from 1979 through 2020 (Rounds 1-29). To access public data, use the NLS Investigator.

Learn more about shifts in employment patterns during the pandemic in the Beyond the Numbers article: How did employment change during the COVID-19 pandemic? Evidence from a new BLS survey supplement available on the BLS website.

This dataset contains data from 1997 through 2019 (Rounds 1-19), plus the NLSY97 COVID-19 Supplement data from earlier this year. To access public data, use the NLS Investigator.

A short NLSY97 COVID survey was fielded in the first half of 2021 to document the possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the employment and health of the NLSY97 cohort. This data set is now available using the NLS Investigator. More information can be found in Appendix 14: NLSY97 COVID-19 Supplement.

This release includes data from 1986 through 2018. The Child/YA cohort follows the biological children of the women in the NLSY79. To access public data, use the NLS Investigator.

We have released an NLSY79/NLSY97 beta dataset designed to harmonize NLS data across two cohorts, allowing users added opportunities to perform cross-cohort comparisons. Initially the dataset includes interview date, reason for noninterview, age, marital status, highest grade attended, highest grade completed, and employment status, with possible expansion to over 100 variables. Fixed background variables are also included, such as sex, race, and AFQT score. See Appendix 13: Cross-Cohort NLSY79/97 Overview for more information.

This release includes data from 1979 through 2018 (Rounds 1-28). To access public data, use the NLS Investigator.

We have re-released the NLSY97 public-use Rounds 1-18 data with some updates. A comprehensive review of the created wage variables CV_HRLY_COMPENSATION and CV_HRLY_PAY led to updates to a number of these created variables and select underlying raw data through all rounds. See the Errata for NLSY97 Round 18 Release for details. The re-release also includes a small number of corrections to the created incarceration variables and to invalid dates for freelance job start dates; these are also detailed on the errata page. The dataset can be accessed at NLS Investigator.