Now on the eve of its 29th anniversary, the project remains under the direction of its founder Vern L. Bengtson, Ph.D., AARP, university professor of Gerontology and Sociology. The study is still located at the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
    The original study was intended as a one-time survey of family relations across the generations with a particular interest in "the generation gap," which was an area of controversy at the time.  Recognizing these respondents as a valuable resource in studying the rapidly changing nature of the American family, in 1985, Dr. Bengtson set in motion additional waves of data collection. The original families were surveyed about change and continuity in their families in 1985, again in 1988, 1991, 1994, 1997 and most recently in 2001.
     In 1991 we sought the perspective of the fourth generation, the great grandchildren of the original study grandparents. At present we are developing plans for the eighth  wave of data collection on these families,  participants and witnesses to the turbulent history of American family life in the last quarter of the 20th century.
     In 1986 and again in 1990, interviewers went to the homes of 30 families who live  in the Los Angeles area. We wanted to learn what it meant to the family constellation to have a sick and dependent older relative to care for. In 1990 there was a telephone survey of single parents asking about their use of family's help and support. Following the Northridge earthquake in 1994, we telephoned study members in Southern California asking about  responses of different generations, and preparation steps taken following a major disaster.
     A variety of complex research designs have been employed in the analyses of data across five waves of collection.
     Eighteen doctoral dissertations are based on this study.  More than 100 Papers and Presentations at scholarly meetings have resulted from the analysis of these surveys, and interviews with these families.