i
and
the with come from longitudinal study is a simple of one and three was come
from high school graduates from the class of nineteen fifty seven
and they've been interview since nineteen fifty seven
but they didn't since nineteen fifty seven
and the simple has grown over time to include a selected sampling for each relevant
graduate i'm and we've also interviewed their stances and have lots of questions about their
children and their parents as well
so in essence that's over time become of families based
sample
this string that the study is that it is a longitudinal panel that covered a
single cohort over nearly fifty years
another important strength is the fact that we have been interfering the siblings of the
graduates for innocence over twenty years so we can look at
innocents
sibling based designs mainly samples
the rest that this study so in the early part or in the early years
at this study we were focused mostly on educational attainment occupational attainment family
as the study of phased
the kinds of things that we've asked them are relevant to their a life course
perspective so now
we're focusing heavily on health
psychological well being retirements i'm retirement economic wellbeing
well there so there's sort of a range of i think different relevant findings one
new area that we've begun to explore it is the interaction between by biological and
social factors
so well we collect a lot of relevant helped in honour sample and we've also
been able to collect
genetic data
so we can look at how for example gene environments rack to affect people's
how to add and especially to affect bins like their psychological well being in
we live
we've been able to look at
how a people's
educational experiences including
their academic performance is affected health the mortality in my life
so there's a lot of work for example looking at the relationship between i q
in mortality we measured our respondents like use when they were in high school or
they were collected by the state of wisconsin
and we were able to demonstrate or keep were able to demonstrate using our data
that it wasn't so much i q that how drove mortality it was a much
more strongly linked to people's academic performance degrades the rank and high school specifically
a couple examples
you know more broadly the degree to which we can look at how experiences the
cost people's life course in their work family life and their child even
how that influences psychological
how and economic well being and like life
a few but a specific examples would include we have a lot of questions on
people's
and of life planning
and this is of highly relevant policy debate at the moment so
how well are people preparing in terms of things like preparing wills
or harm healthcare proxies and so is asked a lot of people very specific questions
about their planning
i'm and then we've been able to look at this is
a different heartbreakers still able to look at what protects
people to plan
four and of life and everything from harm
your marital relationships to your educational attainment seem to be relevant in terms of helping
us understand who's planning and who isn't
well the question i mean are simple is interesting in part because we're on a
sort of a cup so the baby hours
are simple is just a little bit older
i'm but also so we sort of the are simple sort of false and between
the baby boomers and the cohort following so that or the or slightly older co
for so
it's a transition period so for example
people older than our call for would have had
things like defined benefit plan
for the comprise their retirement income a pretty straightforward retirement income stream
in our sample you're saying that transition
that younger courts or experience for their financial eyes are a lot more complicated their
private savings as a lot more relevant to their retirement planning retirement income
since things like that
one of the greatest ranks at this study is the product of the data that
we've collected we've collected information on nearly every aspect of these people's lives so there's
always room
one it area where there are a lot of work but where we would like
to see a lot more is especially related to con cognition so precisely because we
have measures of cognition when these individuals were in their childhood and weeping continuing to
clark cognitive functioning measures as they age
there's a lot of work to be done on helping understand in essence how cognition
changes as people a eight
what determines those changes how things that happen during your schooling experiences during your work
life how whether how factors help shape and genetic factors help change a cognition as
people age