FFCWS: Longitudinal Study of Family and Child Wellbeing in U.S. Cities, 1998-2024

Nearly 5,000 children born in large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000 are followed in this longitudinal study, which oversampled births to unmarried couples. The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) was designed by Sara McLanahan of Princeton University to examine parental conditions, relationships, child outcomes, and policy effects. Data collection involves interviews with mothers, fathers, and caregivers at birth and when children are ages 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, and 22, with direct child interviews beginning at age 9.

Use Cases

• Modeling child cognitive and behavioral outcomes based on parental resources and home environment data.
• Analyzing the stability of relationships between unmarried parents over a 22-year period.
• Studying the impact of neighborhood characteristics and program participation on family economic status.
• Investigating links between parental mental/physical health and adolescent sleep patterns from actigraphy data.

Strengths

• Longitudinal design with data collected over 26 years from 1998 to 2024.
• Nearly 5,000 child cohort with oversampling for policy-relevant unmarried parent families.
• Multi-method data including parent interviews, direct child assessments, and home environment observations.

Limitations

• Row count and file formats are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Geographic focus is limited to births in large U.S. cities, which may not be nationally representative.

Provenance

Source

Princeton University

Collection Method

Longitudinal cohort study using interviews, surveys, and direct observations.

Time Range

1998-2024

Geography

Large cities in the United States