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Wednesday, Nov 25
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PSID-HRS Cross-walk - About
The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is one of the most widely used social science data sets in the world to study aging-related issues. With its sample of people 51 and older, it provides an unparalleled set of data to examine a broad array of social and behavioral questions within a longitudinal framework. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is the longest running national panel study in the world. It has been replicated in many countries, and 35 years after it began in 1968, it is still one of the most significant data resources in the US. Both of these studies have been supported by grants provided by NIA.
In recent years the PSID has expanded its content to include domains that overlap those included in the HRS, especially health, wealth, and pensions. The instrument used to collect this information in the PSID is similar to the instrument used in the HRS. Since the PSID collects data on individuals of all ages, the PSID is a resource that can allow researchers to examine earlier parts of the life course.
In an attempt to make it easier for researchers to take advantage of coordinated use of the HRS and PSID we have constructed a cross-walk between the two data sets for survey years 2000 for HRS and 2001 for PSID. The cross-walk includes the domains of health, income and wealth.
The initial construction of the cross-walk involved a detailed examination of the relevant questionnaire documentation for HRS-2000 and PSID-2001. The PSID-2001 question order was used to construct the cross-walk topics within each of the domains, and each PSID-2001 question was matched as closely as possible to its HRS-2000 counterpart. Since there were questions unique to each instrument the cross-walk domains include 3 parts: questions that were common to both studies, questions that appear in the PSID-2001, but not in the HRS-2000, and questions that appear in the HRS-2000, but not in the PSID-2001.
The variable names listed in the cross-walk domains come directly from the main files released by each study: PSID - Family File for 2001 (see http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu) ; HRS - Core File for 2000 (see http://hrsonline.isr.umich.edu). Additionally, names for imputed variables are provided for each domain, where available. The imputed variables are stored in supplemental files: PSID - Family Income Plus File; HRS - Imputations File.
This cross-walk should allow researchers to quickly search a topic under one of the domains of health, income and wealth and be provided with variable names in PSID-2001 and HRS-2000, as well as variable response options and imputed variable names. Where available, variable names for the Spouse are also provided.
Researchers should be aware that variable names change between waves in the HRS.
Thus, to extend the crosswalk to waves before or after HRS2000 will require updating the names.
The HRS provides an online concordance to assist with this
(see http://hrsweb.isr.umich.edu/concord/index.html).
This crosswalk is intended to assist users in identifying similar variables across studies.
There may, however, be significant differences in question wording or in skip patterns of
who gets asked a particular question that researchers will need to take into account.
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