The PSID and Me

Abstract

Offers personal reflections on the origins & development of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) since the author's initial involvement with it as a graduate student in 1972. The origins of the project in then-President Lyndon Johnson's "War of Poverty" & its growth as one of the main instruments used to assess the economic health of the nation's households are chronicled. Stages in the processes of goal setting, proposal writing, questionnaire development, & data collection & analysis are outlined; methodological changes over the years are also documented. The wealth of data provided by the PSID on family composition, residential location, income sources & amounts, & employment patterns have provided fresh insights into the nature & trajectory of the family life cycle, as well as been used to compare patterns on the bases of gender, race, & other sociodemographic variables. Policy & programmatic uses of the PSID findings are described, along with encouraging efforts by other countries to replicate the PSID panel design in their own socioeconomic research. The author's application of economic & policy insights from her PSID experience to her new research on human development is recounted. 5 Tables, 37 References. K. Hyatt Stewart