Data and information required for this study come from four main sources: (a) The United States Department of Labor’s National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY 79) data base; (b) The United States Internal Revenue Code; (c) The U.S. Department of Education’s 1996 publication, The Digest of Education Statistics : and (d) The United States Chamber of Commerce’s 1995 publication, Bevond the Fringe: A Study of Benefits Practices and Costs of a Cross-Section of American Firms. In this section I describe these data sources and the study variables extracted from each.