An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
The usefulness of data from any longitudinal or panel study that follows and interviews the same respondents over a period of years depends on the assumption that the data represent the relevant populations. Nonresponse by members of the sample is a potential source of bias that can undermine the quality of estimates derived using longitudinal data. This memorandum compares overall response rates between the initial interview and the most recent interview for three major national surveys, the Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD) conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) conducted by the Center for Human Resource Research at Ohio State University. It also discusses major differences across the surveys in the approaches used to maximize long-run response rates, and the consequences of differential nonresponse for data quality.
Share
Related Information
Some content on this site is available in several different electronic formats. Some of the files may require a plug-in or additional software to view.
Top