Couple-level Panel Data from the US Current Population Survey, 1976-2020

<p><strong>PI-PROVIDED ABSTRACT:</strong> This study examines trends in couples’ work and earnings in the years following childbirth and the implications of these couple-level processes for changes in aggregate inequality over time. We address critical gaps in the literature regarding how couples sort into marriage and how they negotiate roles within marriage. We use four decades of successive, short-run panels from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to assess changes in husbands’ and wives’ work and earnings following a first birth. As part of this study, we have developed syntax to produce a couple-level, longitudinal CPS database from 1976-onward, and are making these syntax files publicly available. The syntax files are designed to link couples longitudinally in the CPS. They work from 1976-onwards, but should work in the future as well.</p>