NLSY79 consists of three independent samples that total approximately 12,700 respondents, representative of individuals who were born between 1957 and 1964 and were residing in the United States of America in 1979. The first is a sample of over 6,000 civilians; the second is an oversample of over 5,000 (i) Black, non-Hispanic, (ii) Hispanic, and (iii) economically disadvantaged non-Black non-Hispanic civilian men and women; and the third is a sample of military youth, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, comprising 1,280 men and women who were born between 1957 and 1961 and were serving in the military as of 30 September 1978. About half of all NLSY79 participants have at least one sibling in the sample, allowing explorations of within-family similarities and differences. The children of the women of NLSY79 have also been followed as part of a separate cohort, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Children and Young Adults (NLSCYA), allowing intergenerational explorations as well.