Family Dynamics, Fertility, and Investments in Children across Generations

/Abstract The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a longitudinal, nationally representative survey of US families. The study began in 1968 and has collected 43 waves of data over 56 years on the original families and their descendants, and has added two major immigrant refresher samples in 1997–1999 and 2017–2019. PSID serves as a cornerstone for empirical social and behavioral research through its long-term measurement, over the life course and across generations, of economic, social, demographic, and health processes. The data are available free of charge to the research community, with outreach and support to new and established data users. These features have led PSID to become one of the most widely used social science data sets in the world. The study’s innovative design, broad content, and long duration have been central to understanding many key research and policy issues. The data support increasingly rich models of child and adult outcomes over the life course and across multiple generations of the same family. NICHD has co-funded the biennial Core PSID for each of the last 11 waves, from 2003 to 2023. This project builds upon this investment through the following specific aims: First, to collect data on three modules—family dynamics, fertility and newborns, and education—as part of the 2025 wave of the Core PSID survey. Second, to incorporate new measures of personal perceptions of unfair treatment due to demographic, social, and/or economic characteristics. Third, to process, document, and disseminate these data without charge to the research community while providing outreach and support to new and established data users. This project will make several major contributions. It will extend the longest-running household panel survey in the world, supporting new and up-to-date research on family dynamics, investments in children, and well-being over the life course, across generations, and over time. PSID data from 2025 will support research on the medium-term effects of the global pandemic of 2019 on behavior and well-being, and will facilitate future studies on how life course trajectories were altered by exposure to the pandemic. The rich data to be collected on education will support detailed analyses of the determinants of schooling decisions within the family context as well as the effects of these decisions on life course outcomes. Information from the newborn module will allow research on birth outcomes and on the consequence of birth outcomes and very-early life experiences on life course trajectories. Continuing data collection on the dynamic processes of family formation and dissolution, fertility, and living arrangements will allow researchers to understand the evolving complexity and circumstances of families in the U.S. The new data on personal perceptions of unfair treatment will immediately support innovative analyses of the social, economic, and contextual factors that shape these perceptions and will subsequently support research on their health and well-being consequences. Lastly, data user outreach and assistance will stimulate and support research using PSID and engage a new generation of scientists. Project Number: 2R01HD069609-16 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) | Principal Investigator: Thomas Crossley | Institution: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR, ANN ARBOR, MI | Award Amount: $670,742 | Activity Code: R01 | Study Section: Social Sciences and Population Studies B Study Section[SSPB] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2R01HD06960916