Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Supplement to the National Agricultural Workers' Survey
Project Overview
The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation worked in conjunction with the Office of Head Start and the Employment and Training Administration to develop, pilot and implement a Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) Supplement to the National Agricultural Workers’ Survey (NAWS). The NAWS is sponsored by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the Department of Labor (DOL).
The NAWS was originally established in 1988, and collects demographic, employment and health characteristics of the U.S. crop labor force. Topics covered by the NAWS include work histories and tasks, as well as health and household information. Special reports are released periodically from the survey, and a public-use data set is available. Special reports produced from the NAWS cover various issues including child labor, farmworker health and emergency housing. For more information, please see the DOL/ETA website (http://www.doleta.gov/agworker/naws.cfm).
The MSHS Supplement to the NAWS was initiated in 2009 and asks questions regarding farmworkers' child care preference and knowledge of MSHS. MSHS-specific reports from NAWS will be released on a regular basis. They will include details on household and employment, health, and service utilization of MSHS-eligible agricultural workers. For the MSHS-specific reports, farmworkers were identified as MSHS-eligible when they worked more than 50% of the time on agricultural crops, had children in their household younger than six, and had a household income that was 100% of the poverty level or less. The reports will contrast data regarding MSHS-eligible families with data from families with young children and similar employment, but whose households have incomes greater than 100% of poverty. Future reports will also contain trend analyses regarding characteristics of MSHS-eligible families over time. This project is being conducted by JBS Aguirre, International, working with ETA/DOL.
The point of contact is Wendy DeCourcey.
