The Health and Retirement Study A Longitudinal Study of Health, Retirement, and Aging Sponsored by the National Institute on Aging

Home Intro/Guide Documentation Data Publications Search

Descriptions Questionnaires Concordance Codebooks Modules Imputations Weights Data Alerts User Guides

1. HRS Core Sample and Supplements

Study Population
The target population for Wave 1 of the HRS includes all adults in the contiguous United States, born during the years 1931 - 1941, who reside in households. Following conventional practice for population surveys, institutionalized persons (i.e. those in prisons, jails, nursing homes, long-term or dependent care facilities) are initially excluded from the survey population. We do, however, follow individuals when they move from the household population into institutions.

The HRS observational unit is an eligible household financial unit. The HRS household financial unit must include at least one age- eligible member from the 1931-1941 birth year cohorts: 1) a single unmarried age-eligible person; 2) a married couple in which both persons are age-eligible; or 3) a married couple in which only one spouse is age-eligible. Throughout this document, the convenient term "household" will be used interchangeably with the more precise "household financial unit" definition. If a sample housing unit (HU) contains more than one unrelated age-eligible person, one of these persons is randomly selected as the financial unit to be observed. If an age-eligible person has a spouse, the spouse is automatically selected for HRS even if he or she is not age-eligible.

Multi-stage Area Probability Sample Design

The HRS sample is selected under a multi-stage area probability sample design. The sample includes four distinct selection stages. An overview of these selection stages is given here. The primary stage of sampling involves probability proportionate to size (PPS) selection of U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and non-MSA counties. This stage is followed by a second stage sampling of area segments (SSUs) within sampled primary stage units (PSUs). The third stage of sample selection is preceded by a complete listing (enumeration) of all housing units (HUs) that are physically located within the bounds of the selected SSU. The third sampling stage is a systematic selection of housing units from the HU listings for the sample SSUs. The fourth and final stage in the multi-stage design is the selection of an age- eligible person within a sample HU.

Oversamples of Special Populations

In addition to the nationally-representative, multi-stage area probability sample (the core sample), the HRS design includes three oversamples. The oversamples are introduced as supplements to the core national sample and are designed to increase the numbers of Black and Hispanic HRS respondents as well as the number of HRS respondents who are residents of the state of Florida. Sampling weights are provided on all HRS data sets to compensate for the unequal probabilities of selection between the core and oversample domains.

1990 Census data suggest that the expected total of completed interviews from an equal probability sample of U.S. households would contain approximately 10% age-eligible Black households. Within the 84 PSUs which comprise the first stage of the SRC National Sample Design, a supplemental sample of SSUs (area segments) was selected from second stage strata of Census block groups containing 10% or more 1990 Census households with a Black head. Thus, eligible persons in residential areas eligible for the second stage sample supplement (more than 10% Black households per block group) have a greater probability of selection than persons in areas which have less than 10% Black households. Through the use of this procedure, the representation of eligible Black household units was expected to increase from 10% to about 18.6% of the total HRS sample.

For an equal probability sample of U.S. households, estimates from the Current Population Survey would suggest that 5% of the HRS households would include a respondent of Hispanic origin. Approximately 58% of these Hispanic households are of Mexican ancestry. The design objective for the HRS was to obtain a two-fold oversampling of Mexican-American households. The Hispanic supplement required additions to the PSU sample, especially in the West and Southwest. In addition to expanding the primary stage of the sample, supplemental sampling of SSUs in areas with Hispanic household density of 10% or more was used to assure sufficient sample size to permit subgroup analysis. Unlike the Black oversample eligibility in these SSUs was restricted to households containing an age-eligible Hispanic household member. The Hispanic supplement was designed to increase the representation of Hispanics, including the Mexican-American subgroup, from 5% to 8.6% of the total HRS sample.

In addition to the oversamples of Black and Hispanic households, the HRS design incorporates a two-fold oversample of Florida households (across all race and ethnic groups). Supplemental funds were obtained to increase the number of Florida PSUs (from 5 to 12 Florida PSUs). This insured that there would be sufficient precision to allow separate state-level analysis of data from the HRS Florida respondents.

HRS Household-level and Person-level Response Rates

Table 1 summarizes the household-level response rate experience of the overall HRS survey and its sample components. Table 2 shows the corresponding person-level response rates. The sample design specifications called for an 80 percent response rate. The tables below show that this rate was met or exceeded by all sample components except the Hispanic supplement which has a household response rate of 71 percent and a person-level response rate of 77 percent.

Table 1: HRS Wave 1 Household-level Response Rates

Table 2: HRS Wave 1 Person-level Response Rates³

Of the 12,654 HRS Wave 1 interviews, 609 interviews (351 R1s and 258 R2s) were obtained in response to special incentives as part of the HRS Nonresponse Study. These 609 interviews were from a sample of 2,602 HRS selected persons (1617 sample households) who initially refused to participate. Of the 1,617 household refusals in the Nonresponse Study, 67 were found to have no eligible sample members.

Wave 1 HRS Weights for Data Analysis

The complex sample design of the Health and Retirement Study, which includes oversamples of Hispanics, Blacks, and households in the state of Florida requires compensatory weighting in descriptive analyses of the survey data. Beyond simple compensation for unequal selection probabilities, weighting factors are also used to adjust for geographic and race group differences in response rates and for the subsampling of households in a small number of locked buildings or dangerous areas (see Note 4). Poststratification adjustments are made at both the household and person level in order to control sample demographic distributions to known 1990 Census totals. This section describes the weight variables which have been developed for the HRS Wave 1 data.

The household analysis weight is a composite weight which has been formed from the product of five component factors: (1) the housing unit selection weight, (2) an adjustment factor for non-listed segments (see Note 5), (3) an adjustment factor for subsampled areas, (4) a household nonresponse adjustment factor, and (5) a household post-stratification factor. The person level analysis weight incorporates two additional factors, the respondent selection weight and a person level post-stratification factor. In the few cases where a household contained both an HRS and an AHEAD eligible respondent there is a further adjustment to reflect a random allocation into one of the two studies.

The HRS household selection weight is a relative weight value designed to be used with contemporary software systems that support weighted estimation and data analysis. HRS data analysts may opt to scale this relative weight. Some analysts may prefer the sum of weights to equal the nominal sample size (n = 7608). Others may prefer a scaled version of the weight that sums over cases to the eligible household total (N = 17,649,279 for 1990 U.S. households). With the exception of estimates of household population totals, weighted estimation and analysis of HRS household data should be invariant to linear scaling of the relative household weight value. Nevertheless, HRS data analysts are advised to investigate how their chosen analysis program treats weights in estimation and inference.

Person Level Weight - Respondent Selection Factor

The Health and Retirement Study is a sample of households with at least one person born during the period 1931 - 1941. Although non- age eligible persons were interviewed for HRS if they were a spouse or partner of an age-eligible respondent, the HRS is not a probability sample of persons born before 1931 or after 1941. These age- ineligible persons have a person level analysis weight of zero. Their data is useful in constructing household level estimates or models, but they should not be part of a person-level analysis if inferences are to be made to the finite population from which they were drawn.

Two factors determine the value of the respondent selection weight: (1) the marital status of the respondent, and (2) the number of age- eligible persons in the household. The respondent selection weight is the inverse of the probability of selection of the age-eligible respondent from the total number of age-eligible household members. In addition to the post-stratification to known 1990 Census household totals for Census Region by Race by Marital Status, the HRS survey data is post-stratified at the person level to 1990 PUMS totals for Census Region (4) by Race/Ethnicity (3) by Sex (2) by Age Group (3). In all, 72 post-stratification cells were formed (4 x 3 x 2 x 3 = 72). Age-eligible respondents were weighted by the product of the Household Analysis Weight and the Respondent Selection Weight and weighted totals were obtained for each of the 72 post-stratification cells. The person-level post-stratification factor was then formed by dividing the 1990 PUMS estimate of total population for each cell by the weighted HRS estimate of the population total.

The Person-level Analysis Weight is the product of the Household Analysis Weight, the Respondent Selection Weight and the Person-level Poststratification Weight. Only age-eligible respondents have valid person-level weights. Age-ineligible respondents have a value of zero for the person weight. Household-level data appears only on the primary respondent (R1) record. Therefore only R1s have valid household analysis weights. Secondary respondents (R2s) have a household weight of zero. Age-eligible R2 cases incorporate the household weight as one of the multiplicative factors of the final person-level analysis weight. Table 3 shows the relationship of respondent type, age-eligibility and weights.

Table 3: Use of Household and Person Weights

Sample Error Computation

The HRS is based on a stratified multi-stage area probability sample of United States households. The HRS sample design is very similar in its basic structure to the multi-stage designs used for major federal survey programs such as the Health Interview Survey (HIS) or the Current Population Survey (CPS). The survey literature refers to the HRS, HIS and CPS samples as complex designs, a loosely-used term meant to denote the fact that the sample incorporates special design features such as stratification, clustering and differential selection probabilities (i.e., weighting) that analysts must consider in computing sampling errors for sample estimates of descriptive statistics and model parameters. Standard analysis software systems such SAS and SPSS assume simple random sampling (SRS) or equivalently independence of observations in computing standard errors for sample estimates. In general, the SRS assumption results in underestimation of variances of survey estimates of descriptive statistics and model parameters. Confidence intervals based on computed variances that assume independence of observations will be biased (generally too narrow) and design-based inferences will be affected accordingly.

There are a variety of models and software packages available which can be used to estimate sampling errors which take into account deviations for simple random sampling of complex sample designs. Examples of commercially available programs for sample error computation include PC CARP, the SVY command set in STATA, SUDAAN and CLUSTERS. To facilitate the computation of sampling error for statistics based on HRS data, design-specific sampling error codes will be routinely included in all public-use versions of the data set. Although minor recoding may be required to conform to the input requirements of the individual programs, the sampling error codes that are provided should enable analysts to conduct either Taylor Series or Replicated estimation of sampling errors for survey statistics. Two variables are provided for this purpose:

• STRATUM (formerly named SESTRAT) - The sampling error stratum code is the variable which defines the sampling error computation strata for all sampling error analysis of the HRS data. With the exception of the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago MSAs, each self-representing (SR) design stratum is represented by one sampling error computation stratum. Due to their population size, two sampling error computation strata are defined for each of the three largest MSAs. Pairs of similar non- self-representing (NSR) primary stage design strata are "collapsed" (Kalton, 1977) to create NSR sampling error computation strata.
  
  Controlled selection and a "one-per-stratum" design allocation are used to select the primary stage of the HRS national sample. The purpose in using Controlled Selection and the "one-per-stratum" sample allocation is to reduce the between-PSU component of sampling variation relative to a "two-per-stratum" primary stage design. Despite the expected improvement in sample precision, a drawback of the "one-per-stratum" design is that two or more sample selection strata must be collapsed or combined to form a sampling error computation stratum. Variances are then estimated under the assumption that a multiple PSU per stratum design was actually used for primary stage selection. The expected consequence of collapsing design strata into sampling error computation strata is the overestimation of the true sampling error; that is, the sampling error computation model defined by the codes will yield estimates of sampling errors which in expectation will be slightly greater than the true sampling error of the statistic of interest.
  
  
• SECU (formerly named HALFSAM) - Stratum-specific half sample code for analysis of sampling error using the BRR method or approximate "two-per-stratum" Taylor Series method (Kish and Hess, 1959). Within the self- representing sampling error strata, the half sample units are created by dividing sample cases into random halves, HALFSAM=1 and HALFSAM=2. The assignment of cases to half-samples is designed to preserve the stratification and second stage clustering properties of the sample within an SR stratum. Sample cases are assigned to half samples based on the SSU in which they were selected. For this assignment, sample cases were placed in original stratification order (SSU number order) and beginning with a random start entire SSU clusters were systematically assigned to either HALFSAM=1 or HALFSAM=2.

In the general case of non-self-representing (NSR) strata, the half sample units are defined according to the PSU to which the respondent was assigned at sample selection. That is, the half samples for each NSR sampling error computation stratum bear a one-to-one correspondence to the sample design NSR PSUs.

The particular sample coding provided on the HRS public use data set is consistent with the "ultimate cluster" approach to complex sample variance estimation (Kish, 1965; Kalton, 1977). Individual stratum, PSU and SSU code variables may be needed by HRS analysts interested in components of variance analysis or estimation of hierarchical models in which PSU-level and neighborhood-level effects are explicitly estimated.

[Return to Top]

2. AHEAD Core Sample and Supplements

The target population for the AHEAD survey consists of United States household residents who were born in 1923 or earlier. AHEAD uses the same national probability sample of U.S. households with supplemental oversamples of Blacks, Hispanics and residents of the state of Florida as the HRS. Indeed, for most of the sample the same screening survey was used in the two cohorts. The major difference between the AHEAD and HRS sample design (other than the cohort) is that a dual frame approach was used for individuals born prior to 1914.

A discussion of AHEAD sample design and interview methodology requires the definition of two subgroups of eligible households in the survey population. The two groups of AHEAD-eligible households are defined solely for purposes of the sample design and determination of the primary mode of interview -- phone for younger households, face-to- face for older households. The assignment of households to the two groups is based on the age of the oldest person in the household financial unit. If the single adult or either spouse in a married couple was born prior to 1914, the household financial unit is assigned to Group 2. If the single adult or both persons in a married couple were born after 1913 the household financial unit is assigned to Group 1. The full national sample of AHEAD-eligible households is divided approximately 60% to Group 1 and 40% to Group 2. Under the AHEAD sample design, Group 1 households are selected exclusively from the area probability (AP) frame component. Group 2 households are selected using a dual-frame design, roughly 50% of the Group 2 sample originating with the AP frame and the remaining 50% from a stratified sampling from a list frame of Medicare enrollees.

Beginning with Wave 1, AHEAD Group 1 households -- those age 70-79 in 1993 -- were interviewed by telephone except in cases where there was no telephone in the household or the respondent was unable to complete the interview by telephone. Their spouses were also interviewed by telephone. Most AHEAD respondents in Group 2 were interviewed face- to-face in their homes, although telephone interviews were permitted in cases where the respondent preferred the telephone mode. Face-to- face interviews were also the primary mode of Wave 1 data collection for the spouses of these respondents, irrespective of the spouse's age. The percent of persons in each major age group who were interviewed in person or by telephone is summarized in Table 4 below.

Table 4. AHEAD Wave 1: Distribution of Wave 1 Responses by Respondent Age and Interview Mode

AHEAD Dual-Frame Sample Design

Both the area probability (AP) and the HCFA EDB file components of the Group 2 dual-frame approach employed multi-stage probability sampling. The AP design component employs conventional multi-stage area probability sampling down to the selection of addresses from second stage unit (SSU) listings generated by SRC enumerators. Anticipating that the sample would also be used as the basis for a national study of the oldest old, the HRS screening forms completed during contact with the approximately 69,000 sample housing units selected for HRS were designed to identify households with members who would be eligible to participate in AHEAD.

The HCFA EDB file list sample was selected from Medicare enrollees whose listed addresses were linked to a primary stage unit of the AP sample design. EDB file addresses were linked to AP primary stage units (PSUs) using county and ZIP Code identifiers that were present on each enrollee's record. Within PSUs, geographic clusters (based on ZIP Code areas) of persons born in 1913 or earlier (i.e., age 80 or older in 1993) were then linked to the AP SSUs (area segments) of the AP sample component. A sample of ZIP areas was selected and individual enrollees in sampled ZIPs were subsampled with probabilities that yielded an equal overall probability of selection for each eligible Group 2 enrollee. The union of these two independent samples, the AP sample and the HCFA EDB file list sample selections, produced a dual frame probability sample of the Group 2 AHEAD population.

Table 5 provides a summary of the AHEAD sample outcomes for Group 1 and Group 2 households and individual respondents. As the table shows, the total sample of age 80+ respondent households was divided between the AP and the HCFA EDB file list frames. The difference in the expected 80+ interview counts for the two frames was due to the fact that the AP frame sample includes supplements of Blacks, Hispanics and Florida residents that were not replicated in the HCFA EDB file selection.

Table 5: Summary of AHEAD Wave 1 Household and Respondent Samples

HRS - AHEAD Overlap and Weighting

In roughly 100 instances household financial units (married couples) included both an HRS-eligible and an AHEAD-eligible person. In these cases a random subsampling was performed with 60% of the cases going to the HRS and the remaining going to the AHEAD.

For the AP portion of the sample the same weighting methods described above for the HRS cohort were applied for the AHEAD. The only differences are a result of certain sample reducing subsampling and the use of fewer cells in the post-stratification adjustments. For the HCFA EDB sample the base weight was simply the inverse of the selection probability which was .0002 for individuals in financial units containing only 1 AHEAD Group 2 eligible person and .0004 for those units containing two AHEAD Group 2 eligible partners.

[Return to Top]

3. The War Babies and Children of the Depression Sample Designs

The sample design employed for the War Babies (1942 - 1947 birth cohorts) component of the 1998 HRS is exactly the same as that employed for the original HRS cohort. Indeed, the same 1992 screening interview was used as the basis of the sample. The only important difference results from the fact that some members of the War Babies cohort were age ineligible spouses of the HRS or AHEAD age eligible respondents and were already included in the study. With the introduction of the new cohort they are now age-eligible sample members in the own right and are given positive weights in 1998.

The sample for the Children of the Depression (1924 - 1930 birth cohorts) was drawn from HCFA files using a method similar to that used for the HCFA portion of the 1993 AHEAD.

[Return to Top]

4. Households and Persons: Who Answered What?

Questions and Respondents

The most important distinction is between individuals who are part of a couple (either married and living with their spouse, or living with a partner) and those who are not. Those who are not part of a couple are asked all questions that apply to them as individuals and as economic units. For those who are part of a couple, some questions are asked either of them or their spouse/partner, but not both of them. Which questions were asked of only one member of a couple, and how that distinction was made, has not been completely consistent across waves of data collection.

Another factor that influences whether or not certain questions were asked is whether the interview was conducted directly with the sampled individual or with a proxy informant.

A summary of sets of questions and the type of respondents who were asked those sets is provided in Table 6. The rows are general sets of questions. The columns are waves of data collection for HRS, AHEAD, and the merged HRS/AHEAD data collection in 1998. The cells indicate which types of respondents were asked questions in a particular set (defined by the row) in a particular wave (defined by the column). The following notation is used:

• *Coversheet R: The respondent who answered the coversheet questions. The respondent doing the first interview in a couple-household at a particular wave was asked the coversheet questions.
  
• *Fin R: Financial respondent
  
• *Fam R: Family respondent
  
• Self R or Proxy R: Whether the questions were asked of the sampled person directly or of a proxy informant
  
• All Rs: Includes both Self and Proxy Rs
  
• Informant: The person who gave the household listing for the selected household. May or may not be one of the selected respondents.
  

Note: In a single-R household (where the respondent is neither married nor living with a partner), that respondent is the Coversheet R, the Financial R, and the Family R.

Table 6: Questions and Respondents

This table is organized into three sections -- questions sets that pertain to individual respondents, those that pertain to the household, and those that collect information about other persons related to the respondents.

[Return to Top]

5. Other Details

Mode of data collection

Most of the interviews are done by telephone, although exceptions are made when respondents have health limitations that would make an hour- plus session on the telephone difficult or impossible or when there was no telephone in the household. The preferred mode of data collection was face-to-face for the following types of respondents:

1. The first wave of data collection on HRS
2. AHEAD respondents age 80 and older
3. The baseline interview, in 1998, with the CODA and War Baby cohort samples.

In addition, a mode experiment is built into the design for waves 2 and 3 of AHEAD. In wave 2, sample members born in the years 1914-17 were randomly assigned to telephone or face-to-face as the preferred mode of data collection. The consequence is that half of those in the birth cohorts of 1914 and 1915 were delayed for one wave in the transition from the telephone to the face-to-face mode, while half of those born in 1916 and 1917 were asked to make that transition one wave earlier than would ordinarily have been the case. Similarly, sample members in the birth cohorts of 1918 - 1920 were randomly assigned to telephone or face-to-face as the preferred mode in HRS98. The purpose of this experiment is to permit the assessment of possible mode effects on respondent behavior. Both the assigned and actual modes are indicated by variables on the public use data files.

Proxy informants

The interviewers were instructed to attempt to obtain interviews with the sample members themselves whenever possible, but as in any survey, especially of the elderly, some of those individuals are unable to complete an interview because of physical or cognitive limitations. Moreover, in a small number of cases the sampled individuals were unavailable throughout the data collection period, unable to complete the interview in English or Spanish, or were unwilling to be interviewed, but did not object to someone else answering questions about them.

In some cases, the individual was willing to be interviewed but there were concerns about his or her ability to provide accurate data. In the second wave of AHEAD, three criteria were developed:

• how long the initial part of the interview took to complete;
• the number of questions to which the respondent gave a "don't know" response; and
• the respondent's score on a test of cognitive functioning.

Scores above a certain threshold (i.e., an unusually long time to complete the initial section, more than a threshold number of "don't know" responses, or less than a threshold score on the cognitive test) triggered a signal to the interviewer that a proxy respondent should be sought to do the interview or that someone should be asked to assist the respondent for the remainder of the interview. In practice this advice was not always followed, often because the interviewer did not think there was an appropriate person who could asked to be a proxy respondent or to help answer the questions. However, in some cases a proxy interview was completed and the responses made by the sample person were replaced by those of the proxy. In other cases another person assisted the respondent for the remainder of the interview; indeed, often those who scored poorly on the cognitive test were already were receiving assistance with the interview.

In HRS98, only the third criterion listed above (i.e., low scores on the cognitive test) was used, since the other two did not identify any additional wave 2 cases, and this criterion was used only for respondents aged 65 and older, but was applied to those in the original HRS sample and to those in the new cohorts as well as to those in the AHEAD sample who were in that age range.

When a proxy was needed for any of the reasons just described, the interviewers were instructed to attempt to interview the person who was most familiar with the financial, health, and family situation of the sampled individual. In practice, this was generally the spouse of the person if he or she was married or living with a partner. In the absence of a spouse, the proxy was often a daughter or a son, or less frequently another relative or a care giver. The relationship of the proxy to the sample person is noted in a variable that is present for each wave. In addition, if there was a proxy informant at two successive waves, there is a variable that indicates whether or not this was the same individual on each occasion.

A version of the questionnaire was developed that would be appropriate to administer to proxy informants. For most questions, this involved only wording changes (e.g., from "you" to "him" or "her"), but some questions were thought to be inappropriate to ask of proxies and so were omitted entirely. These included questions intended to assess psychological depression; the test of cognitive status; expectation questions; and questions about subjective evaluations of the person's job or retirement. Proxy informants were asked a different set of questions designed to measure the cognitive abilities of the sampled person.

"Exit" interviews

For a number of reasons, including the fact that large health care costs are often incurred in the final months of life and assets are often distributed to children and other heirs following death, it is considered important to the objectives of HRS and AHEAD to obtain an interview with an appropriate informant following the death of each sample member. A special questionnaire, referred to as the "exit" interview, was developed for this purpose starting with the second wave of AHEAD. (A somewhat modified version of the core interview was administered to proxy informants for deceased sample members at the second wave of HRS.)

Language

Some selected individuals prove to be unable to communicate well enough in English to be interviewed, at least with questions as numerous and sometimes as complex as those included in the HRS and AHEAD interviews. Past experience indicates that it is not a good idea to permit interviewers to handle this on an ad hoc basis, for example by speaking to the person through an English-speaking relative or by hiring a translator, since no control could be retained over the accuracy of the translated questions. For this reason, Spanish versions have been developed of each of the questionnaires, and have been administered by bilingual interviewers to Spanish-speaking respondents. Sample members who are unable to communicate adequately in either English or Spanish, and for whom interviews with proxy informants could not be obtained, are treated as non-respondents and have been dropped from the study.

Residents of nursing homes

The target population for all cohorts is limited to those living in households at the time of the baseline data collection period. For this reason, interviews were not conducted with individuals living in nursing homes or other types of institutions at the time they were first contacted. (This does not apply to short-term stays in nursing homes or in other types of health care facilities; in such cases, the usual practice is to call back later in the field period to ascertain if the individual has returned to his or her usual place of residence.) After the baseline interview has been completed, however, the intention is to follow sample members wherever they go. Interviews are sought with those who move into nursing homes or other types of facilities, or with proxy informants for those who are unable to do the interview.

Starting with the second wave of AHEAD, it was recognized that important information was missed about the situation of sample members with spouses who were in nursing homes at the time of the baseline interview. For this reason, interviews (self or proxy) were sought at that wave with those spouses even if they were still living in nursing homes, and this practice is to continue in all subsequent waves.

Changes in marital status

If a sample member who was not living with a spouse or partner at one wave is found to be living with a spouse or partner at the following wave, then an interview is requested with the new spouse or partner as well as with the sample member.

If a sample member was living with a spouse or partner at one wave is found not to be living with that same spouse or partner at the following wave, then interviews are requested with both members of the previous wave couple, and also with any spouse or partner with whom either of them is living at the time of the following wave.

The only exceptions to the rules described in the two preceding paragraphs are the following.

1. At the third wave of HRS, if a non-cohort eligible spouse or partner of a sample member was no longer living with the sample member at wave 2, and by wave 3 was married to or living with someone else, no interview was sought at wave 3 with that cohort-ineligible spouse/partner. That is, if at wave 1 one member of a couple was born in the HRS range (1931 - 41) and the other one was born outside of both the HRS and AHEAD ranges (i.e., in 1924 - 30 or after 1941), and they had separated by wave 2, then interviews were sought with both individuals at wave 2, regardless of their marital status at that time. However, if the cohort-ineligible person was married to or living with someone else by wave 3, an interview was not requested with that person or with that person's new spouse or partner. This exception was rescinded as of HRS98, so that now interviews are requested with all respondents to the baseline survey.
   
2. Interviews are sought with the new spouses or partners -- that is, individuals with whom the sample members were not living at the time of the baseline interview -- only until they no longer live with the sample member and are found to be married to or living with someone else.

[Return to Top]

Notes

• Note 1: Two response rates are shown. The low response rate shows the DK eligible households in the denominator. The high response rate includes only known eligible households in the denominator.
  
  
• Note 2: Household here means financial household. The household total here (7608) is less than the total household count for HRS Wave 1 (7703) because of 95 households with no financial respondent (due to refusal) and two lost pencil-and-paper interviews (one household).
  
  
• Note 3: Though 12,654 respondents were interviewed, there are only 12,652 data records, due to the two lost pencil-and-paper interviews.
  
  
• Note 4. A subsampling procedure was used in two types of areas: (1) dangerous areas which were determined to be too risky for normal interviewing procedures, and (2) locked buildings or gated residential areas in which the interviewers were unable to gain access. Instead of excluding the entire affected area, one-third of the sample lines in these segments were subsampled and special efforts and resources were concentrated on the smaller set of cases in order to have at least some representation from the area.
  
  
• Note 5. Listing of area segments in Los Angeles coincided with the riots associated with the Rodney King verdict. Interviewers were not able to list two Black supplement segments and four Hispanic supplement segments. Sample lines in similar segments received weights to compensate for the non-listed segments.

[Return to Top]

Last Change: February 16, 2007 (Reformatted August 9, 2002)