Using DDI-Lifecycle to Document the BLS National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth is conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Two cohorts exist, one begun in 1979 and the other in 1997, and another is planned for 2026. In an effort to modernize data dissemination for this new cohort and improve documentation for the data, NLSY is planning to use the DDI-Lifecycle standard for this purpose. This talk will focus on the complexity and richness of NLSY data and how we plan to use DDI to manage the descriptions of them.

NLSY has many subject fields, each with several specialized subjects underneath. Variables differ based on the subject, the wave of the survey, and the need for repetition, say for jobs. The result is many thousands of variables. The current system is not good at simplifying this complexity. The plan is to use the variable cascade and the many ways objects can be grouped in DDI-Lifecycle to reduce the complexity, make it easier for analysts to find variables of interest, and take better advantage of meanings to link similar variables together and distinguish them where necessary.

The result is expected to be a much more coherent system for users to understand NLSY data. Transparency of variables, their similarities, and their differences is a goal. However, the purpose of this talk at this stage of the development of the system is to encourage a discussion about ways BLS could improve its approach.