Table B3.

Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study Variable Topics.

Topic	Subtopic	Notes
Attitudes and expectations	Attitudes/expectations/happiness	E.g., life satisfaction, marriage attitudes
Childcare	Childcare—calendar	Including questions from childcare calendar module
	Childcare center composition	E.g., student composition
	Childcare services and availability	Including home, kin, and center care
	Childcare staff characteristics	E.g., training/degrees received, experience, professional or kin care
Cognitive and behavioral development	Behavior	E.g., impulsivity, internalizing/externalizing, delinquency, time use
	Cognitive skills	E.g., cognitive tests
Demographics	Age
	Citizenship and nativity
	Language
	Mortality
	Race/ethnicity
	Sex/gender
Education and school	Educational attainment/achievement	E.g., grades, class performance, level of school completed
	Parent school involvement	E.g., parent-teacher contact, involvement in school events, helping with homework
	Peer characteristics	E.g., peer/friend school experiences, peer/friend delinquency, peer/friend characteristics
	School characteristics	E.g., grade levels served, public/private, neighborhood of school
	School composition	E.g., student body composition
	Student experiences	E.g., bullying, services received, discipline
	Teacher characteristics	E.g., training/degrees received, experience, demographic characteristics
Employment	Employment—calendar	Including questions from employment calendar module
	Employment—nontraditional work	E.g., “off-the-books” work, “hustles”
	Employment—traditional work	E.g., “regular” work questions
	Unemployment	Including lack of employment and reasons
	Work stress/flexibility	E.g., stress caused by job, schedule, or work-life balance
Family and social ties	Community participation	E.g., volunteering, voting, extracurricular activities, unions
	Grandparents	E.g., grandparent-child contact, grandparent-parent relationship
	Parents’ family background	E.g., characteristics of parents’ families and childhood experiences
	Religion	E.g., religious affiliation, religious attendance, spiritual practice and experience
	Social support	E.g., emotional support, potential financial/housing support, social connections
Finances	Child support	Including formal and informal
	Earnings	Including monetary and in-kind
	Expenses	E.g., food cost, childcare, housing
	Financial assets	E.g., owning a car, credit cards, bank accounts
	Household income/poverty	Including income and poverty status at household level
	Material hardship	E.g., food insecurity, trouble paying bills
	Private transfers	Including transfers with family and friends, both provided and received
	Public transfers and social services	E.g., SNAP, WIC, job training programs, public health insurance
Health and health behavior	Accidents and injuries	Including type, timing, and circumstances of incident
	Disabilities	Including physical and learning disabilities
	Fertility history	Including siblings and half-siblings of focal child, fertility history of focal teens (at year 15)
	Health behavior	E.g., alcohol, smoking, nutrition, exercise, sleep
	Health care access and insurance	E.g., access to doctor, public and private insurance
	Height and weight	Including height, weight, waist, BMI
	Medication	medication prescribed for mental and physical health
	Mental health	E.g., depression, anxiety, stress, health limitations
	Physical health	E.g., diagnoses, health limitations, missed work/school because of physical health
	Sexual health and behavior	E.g., sexual activity, contraception use
	Substance use and abuse	E.g., illegal drugs, improper prescription drug use, problems from drinking
Housing and neighborhood	Child living arrangements	E.g., who child is living with (mother, father, other), reasons child not living with parent
	Home environment	E.g., observations of home and resources, technology in home, home organization/chaos, sibling relationships
	Household composition	Including household roster & residents’ characteristics
	Housing status	E.g., type, ownership/renting, homelessness
	Residential mobility	Including home moves, eviction
	Neighborhood conditions	E.g., safety, neighborhood cohesion
Legal system	Criminal justice involvement	Including arrests, convictions, pending charges, incarceration
	Legal custody	Custody arrangements of children, not including child support questions
	Paternity	Establishment or lack of legal paternity
	Police contact and attitudes	Including police stops, contacting police, attitudes about police, police presence
Paradata and weights	Paradata	E.g., interview dates, completion codes, sample flags
	Survey weights	E.g., national and city weights
Parenting (biological and social parents)	Child welfare services	Including child protective services and foster care
	Parent-child contact	E.g., time spent together, communication with nonresident parent, overnight visits
	Parenting abilities	E.g., decision making, coparenting, parenting stress, self-rating as parent
	Parenting behavior	E.g., doing activities together, routines, discipline
Romantic relationships	Relationship quality	E.g., communication, supportiveness, cooperation, intimate partner violence
	Relationship status	E.g., married, cohabiting, dating, end of relationship

Note: We hierarchically group subtopics into a smaller set of coarser top-level topics to enable both quick, automated exploration (i.e., by topic) and fine-grained manual variable selection (i.e., by subtopic). BMI = body mass index; SNAP = Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; WIC = Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.