This website houses the metadata for over 25,000 variables from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study Public Data and Restricted-Use Contract Data. Please note that not all variables displayed on this site are available through the OPR Archive. Access to data and files with the '(RES)' prefix in the 'survey' field or 'restricted' in the 'source' field require a restricted-use contract data license; See this link for more information.

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study changed its name to The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) in January 2023. Note that some contents in the metadata - such as the API script and code in the R and Python packages - may contain the study's former name. Any further references to FFCWS should kindly observe this name change.

What you can do on this website

Browse Variables	This resource is great for getting started with exploring the FFCWS variables. Sort FFCWS variables by topic, wave, respondent, focal person, scales, survey, source, and/or variable type.
Advanced Search	Perform more detailed queries and/or text searches in the FFCWS metadata.
Download Full Metadata	Download the full metadata as a CSV file.

Metadata Guide

Metadata Field	Column in CSV	Description
Name	new_name	The name of the variable in the current public data
Old Name	old_name	The name of the variable in the data before the 2018 re-release
Label	varlab	A short description of the variable
Question Text	qtext>	The exact wording of the question from the questionnaire
Probe	probe	The exact wording of the lead-in question from the questionnaire, where applicable
Data Source	source	A categorical variable, defining where the data stored in the variable was generated from; if source is listed as restricted, access to data requires a restricted-use contract data license
Survey	survey	The subject of the survey that the variable was from; (RES) indicates where access to data requires a restricted-use contract data license
Wave	wave	The round of data collection that this variable was in (1-6)
Respondent	respondent	The person that provided the information for this variable
Focal Person	fp_*	The subjects of the variable
Topics	topics	The broader concept(s) that are measured by this variable (contains up to two potential topics -- e.g. demographics, employment)
Sub-Topics	subTopics	The specific concept(s) that are measured by this variable (contains up to two potential sub-topics, e.g. race/ethnicity, work stress)
Asked in (N) Cities	n_cities_asked	The number of cities in which this question was asked
Data Type	type	The way that the data is stored in the variable, e.g binary, categorical, continuous
Warning	warning	A code to alert the user that this variable may have an unexpected way to store response codes
FFC variable	in_FFC_file	A flag for whether this variable was included in the data file for the Fragile Families Challenge (yes/no)
Similar variables	group	Denotes a group of similar variables across waves and/or surveys
	q_group_n	Number of variables in the given variable group
	q_group_list	List of all variable names in the given variable group
Scale	scale	Indicates if the question originates from one of a list of pre-established scales
Response codes +	value[1-30]	Lists all possible response options for categorical and binary variables (string)
	label[1-30]	Lists descriptions of all potential response options for categorical and binary variables (string)
	freq[1-30]	Lists the frequency that response[n] appears in the data files
	per[1-30]	Lists the percentage of all values that freq[n] represents
*	section	Parsed from the variable name, indicates the section of the survey in which the question was asked
	leaf	Parsed from the variable name, indicates the question number if from a survey or pneumonic for the substance of non-survey variables
Summary Statistics	obs	For ordered variables, displays the number of non-missing observations
	min	For ordered variables, displays the minimum non-missing value
	max	For ordered variables, displays the maximum non-missing value
	avg	For ordered variables, displays the average of non-missing values
	std	For ordered variables, displays the standard deviation of non-missing values

+ Variables from the Opportunity Insights and SEDA Contract Data files contain response codes using Stata's extended missing values. These may display as system missing in other programs.

* Not included on Explorer website