RAND HRS Family Data 2022 (V1), supported by NIA and HRS

The RAND HRS Family data file is a user-friendly version of HRS family data. The data contain a cleaned, processed, and streamlined collection of variables related to the Respondent’s family. The files include a subset of available characteristics of all children of HRS Respondents and spouses, data on children-in-law, and data on grandchildren of the Respondent.

The files are longitudinal files that link HRS child families within wave and link HRS children across waves. They contain consistent variable names across waves and will easily merge with other HRS data, such as the RAND HRS Longitudinal File and RAND HRS Fat Files. The files are distributed as two alternative longitudinal files: one with Respondent-child observations with variables specific to parent-child pairs, and one with Respondent observations with summary variables about the Respondent’s children.

The RAND HRS Family Data 2022 (V1) include sixteen waves of Core Interview data across survey years 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, and biennially 1996–2022. The files do not include Exit Interviews or any restricted data.

To access the data:

  • All RAND HRS data products are available at: https://hrsdata.isr.umich.edu/data-products/rand.
  • The RAND HRS Family Data 2022 (V1) can be found in the "Longitudinal and Cross-Wave Data Products" section.
  • You will be able to see the data descriptions and documentation without an account, but you will need to register with HRS to access the data.
  • Once your account is active and you have logged in, you will be able to see the data download links for each RAND HRS data product (and other public HRS data products).

For more detailed information, please see the following documents:

Family Data Codebook (PDF Download)

Helpful Resources

For more information, questions or comments please see our FAQ or email us at RANDHRSHelp@rand.org.

Before doing so, however, we kindly request that users first consult the documentation that accompanies our data products, as we have found that our responses often point users to specific sections of the documentation that provide further detail on the variables mentioned in the users’ queries.

In addition, we recommend that users become familiar with some of the information provided on the HRS website, such as the HRS questionnaires and codebooks for the key variables under study.

We have also found the concordance tool extremely useful to help find available variables across waves:

More resources for users