The Monitoring the Future Follow-Up Surveys: A Description of Key Experiences during the First Years after High School. Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper Series, Paper 18.

The Monitoring the Future project was created to measure and report longitudinal changes reflecting the impacts of such post-high school experiences as college, the military, employment, homemaking, unemployment, marriage, and parenthood. In addition to annual surveys of high school seniors, the project includes follow-up surveys extending to 10 years after graduation. This paper provides the first reporting of Monitoring the Future follow-up data on important lifestyle experiences, values, and aspirations during the 6 years following high school graduation. Among the variables covered are marital and parental status, residence and living arrangements, educational plans and experiences, employment status and experience, earnings and sources of income, political and religious orientations, and patterns of recreational behavior. A brief section on methods provides an overview of the study design; further detail is provided in Appendix A. A section entitled "Analysis Strategy" specifies the sets of respondents included in the analyses and the variables used to define subgroups of special interest. This section should be reviewed before using the material in Appendix B. Appendix B contains the most extensive and detailed data, consisting of frequency distributions and means for a wide range of questions asked of follow-up respondents. It includes a descriptive content index as a ready guide for accessing material. A section entitled "Selected Findings" provides commentary on some of the findings. (NB)