Overview of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth Program 1996

The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) program brings together two existing, long-established projects, ACER’s Youth in Transition and DEETYA’s Australian Youth Survey. The origins and extent of these two projects are described in the following pages. While contact with the AYS cohort is due to finish in 1997, it is hoped to continue to survey members of the Youth in Transtion 1975 birth cohort up to at least age 25. In addition, a new program of surveys of students progressing through school and into postschool education and the labour force was established in 1995. New cohorts of Year 9 students will be introduced into the program at three yearly intervals, and surveyed annually for a period up to about age 25. Sampling details for the 1995 cohort can be found in technical paper number 8, while the codebook for that year’s data is found in technical paper number 9