First Malaysian Family Life Survey, 1976-1977

The First Malaysian Family Life Survey, 1976-1977 (MFLS-1), was conducted in Peninsular Malaysia as a retrospective life history survey of 1,262 households containing an ever-married woman aged 50 or younger. Full life histories were collected through personal interviews with these women and their husbands regarding fertility-related events, marriage, employment, migration, income and wealth, attitudes and expectations with respect to family size and composition, community characteristics, time allocation, and transfers of goods, help, and money between the respondents and others. The survey collected data in three separate rounds held at four-month intervals. The majority of the survey was administered in Round 1, while the second and third rounds collected data on new questions not asked in Round 1 and also updated some of the Round 1 data, most notably the work and pregnancy histories. In October 1981, the individual-level dataset (Part 142) was created, consisting of one fixed-length record per individual per household. Variables included at both the individual and household levels provide information on demographics, time allocation, and income and wealth. Due to processing constraints, most of the retrospective data have been omitted from the individual-level dataset.