Documentation » Resources for Analysis of Family Data

Understanding family connections - especially related to economic, emotional, and physical support for each other - and how they change with age is a central concern behind the design of the HRS. The information below is it to help data users navigate the detailed information in HRS on family relationships.

RAND-HRS Family Data Files

In order to facilitate the use of the rich longitudinal data on family relationships in the HRS, we worked with researchers at the RAND Corporation to develop user-friendly files in a format conformable with the other RAND longitudinal files of HRS data.

Learn more about and access the RAND-HRS Family Data Files.

Help Creating Your Own Family Data file

Analysts who wish to create their own longitudinal family data files need to create files using a standard format for all waves of data. You can access instructions and sample SAS, SPSS and Stata code for Creating Parent Files with One Record per Respondent.

Other resources to help create your own family data files:

• Longitudinal Other Person Number (LOPN) Files have been prepared to facilitate the merging of information obtained about children and other household members in different waves of the HRS study. Two variables, HHID and LOPN, uniquely identify children and other household-members across all waves of the study. (Latest Release: February 2004)
  
  
• Overview of Public Files for Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analysis provides a brief review of the HRS public data files and guidelines for using them (Last revision: 2010).
  
  
• Merging HRS Household-Member/Child Records Longitudinally assists analysts who may need to obtain information about children or household members obtained in an earlier wave of the study (Last revision: 2005).
  
  

Family Data Content by Questionnaire Section

Family Data Content by Codebook Section