Using Mokken methods to develop robust cross-national scales: American and West German attitudes toward abortion

A fundamental methodological issue in cross-national research on attitudes is the comparability of the attitude measures across populations. We address this issue by presenting the Mokken method and accompanying Mokken test as a means for developing equivalent attitude scales. We apply these methods to an analysis of the responses to seven abortion items in the 1982 NORC GSS and West German ALLBUS combined files. We find that the seven items form a unidimensional scale in both countries and that four of these items constitute a scale that is robust across the two populations. We conclude by describing how such results can be used to guide the development of Rasch and LISREL models.     

Trends in the intergenerational transmission of divorce

I use data from the 1973-1996 NORC General Social Survey to examine trends in the intergenerational transmission of divorce, the propensity for the children of divorce to end their own marriages. The rate of divorce transmission declined by almost 50% in the study period. This result was essentially unchanged by statistical controls for various personal and family background differences between respondents.     

Married women's retirement behavior

In this paper we examine the economic and family determinants of married women's retirement behavior. A life cycle model of wives' retirement decisions is tested empirically using data on working married women from the Longitudinal Retirement History Survey. This exploratory analysis indicates that family considerations are more important in wives' retirement decisions than own economic opportunities. These findings contrast with those obtained previously for male workers and if substantiated by other research could have important implications for policy questions regarding pension and Social Security reform.This research was funded by the 1986–7 Small Grants Program sponsored by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Institute for Research on Poverty, the Cornell Institute of Social and Economic Research, and the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Excellent programming assistance was provided by Vivian Fields. We are grateful to Glen Cain and two anonymous referees for useful comments. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not those of the above-named persons or institutions.     

Will sex selection reduce fertility?

This paper investigates both theoretically and numerically the impact of sex selection on fertility. A static quantity-quality model of fertility is employed to compare fertility choices in two regimes: one in which parents cannot choose the gender of children and another in which parents can fully choose the gender of children. The static theory shows that whether sex selection reduces fertility depends on the second and third derivatives of the utility function and the child expenditure function. A numerical dynamic analysis is also presented. Using empirical dynamic models of fertility and Monte Carlo integration technique, the simulation shows that sex selection on the firstborn child among the Chinese in Malaysia could reduce fertility by about 3%.I thank the referees for their comments. I am indebted to James Heckman for providing generous computing support. Computational facilities were funded by NICHD Grant HD-19226 and NSF Grant SES-84-11242 to the Economics Research Center, NORC.     

The Influence of Materialistic Inclination on Values,Life Satisfaction and Aspirations: An Empirical Analysis

This article attempts to measure the effect ofmaterialistic inclination on the degree of lifesatisfaction. The study is based on a sample of about1600 respondents randomly selected from differentparts of the city state of Singapore. Theserespondents were divided into two distinct groups withhigh or low materialistic inclination. It wasobserved that when these respondents were asked torate the importance of the nine items from Kahle'sList of Values, the ratings of seven of these itemswere found to be significantly different between thetwo groups. The two groups also indicated differentchoices when asked to rate the things they wanted mostout of life. Finally, it was revealed that they alsoreported different degrees of satisfaction withvarious domains in life in general. However, as withregard to satisfaction with life in Singapore inparticular, there were no significant differencesobserved between the two groups.     

Trends in public attitudes toward educational spending

During the 1970s, only about half of the adult American population wanted to allocate more money to education. But in the 1980s, almost two-thirds of those surveyed have wanted to spend more on education. Using the 1972–86 NORC General Social Surveys (of which there are a dozen replications — each with about 1500 respondents), this paper outlines the sources of this increase in support for educational spending. Over time, while education has been consistently given a higher priority by members of younger birth cohorts, and respondents educated beyond high school, racial differences have narrowed and regional differences have been reversed. In this decade, whites and non-Southerners are increasingly supportive of more spending on education than they were earlier. Finally, while rural/urban differences on education as a national spending priority have remained, this trend is less independent of larger social forces than the others. These results imply that to be most effective in producing increased allocations from public sources, educators and their political supporters should recognize those particular segments of the population who may be most responsive to calls for increased funding.     

Friendship and subjective well-being in Spain: A cross-national comparison with the United States

This paper empirically examines three propositions which are derived from network theory, particularly the relationship between friends' network and happiness level as a subjective well-being indicator. Using friendship network data obtained from 1985 NORC General Social Survey for the U.S., and from 1993 CIRES Social Survey for Spain, a cross-national comparison between Spain and the U.S. was performed. Results are compared with previous major Davis' and Burt's works for the U.S. It was found that there was a significant, strong association between happiness and friends' network size for both countries, and that there was not a great happiness difference between them. However, close friendship has a contrary effect on happiness when data from both countries are compared. Concerning socioeconomic status, happiness increased with income, although this effect was higher in Spain than in the U.S.Financial support for this project was provided by the Department of Sociology, UMA, and University Computer Center. I am indebted to Juan A. Villena and Mary Oliver for helpful comments on early drafts, and to R. Hidalgo for computing assistance.     

Sons or daughters? Cross-cultural comparisons of the sex preferences of Australian,Greek, Italian,Malay, Chinese and Indian parents in Australia and Malaysia

In examining reasons for fertility decline research has focused upon changes in the demand for children, in particular evidence of a transition in values and disvalues of children from high- to low-fertility countries. Two surveys of the value of children to 717 parents in Australia (Australian, Greek and Italian respondents) and 522 parents in Peninsular Malaysia (Malay, Chinese and Indian respondents) investigated the existence of and changes in sex preference and the motivations for wanting sons and daughters. Son preference was in general higher for couples interviewed in Malaysia. The reasons for wanting a son centered upon traditional values of old age support, continuation of the family name and the completion of male tasks in the home. Within Australia, Southern European immigrants mentioned the need to continue the family name, but the Australian-born emphasized the personality and companionship benefits of a son. The reasons for wanting a daughter indicated an even clearer breakdown of interests in the two countries over the traditional as compared to the more psychologically oriented benefits in having a girl. Overall, the comparison between countries indicated a general decline in son preference from high- to low-fertility regimes and somewhat less concern with the traditional roles of children.Requests for reprints should be directed to Dr. V. Callan, Department of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4067, Queensland, Australia. The research projects were funded by grants from the Population and Development Policy Research Program of the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the Australian Department of Health, and the Australian National University.     

Safety in urban neighborhoods: A comparison of physical characteristics and informal territorial control in high and low crime neighborhoods

This study addressed the issue of how some urban neighborhoods maintain a relatively low level of crime despite their physical proximity and social similarity to high crime areas. The study explored differences in physical characteristics and various dimensions of the concept of territoriality in three pairs of neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia. Neighborhoods within pairs were adjacent and were matched on racial composition and economic status but had distinctly different crime levels. The results indicated that differences in physical characteristics distinguished between matched high and low crime neighborhoods to a far greater extent than did differences in the measures of territoriality. The flow of outsiders into and out of low crime neighborhoods was inhibited because land use was more homogeneously residential, there were fewer major arteries, and boundary streets were less traveled than was the case in high crime neighborhoods. There were relatively few differences in informal territorial control between high and low crime neighborhoods. Where differences existed, informal territorial control was more characteristic of high crime than of low crime neighborhoods.This paper is based on a larger study funded by the Community Crime Prevention Division, National Institute of Justice (Grant No. 79-NI-AX-0080). This study was completed when the senior author was at the Research Triangle Institute. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr. Stephanie Greenberg, Social Systems Research and Evaluation Division, Denver Research Institute, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208.     

Ethnicity,Modern Prejudice and the Quality of Life

The aim of this investigation was to measure levels of ethnic or cultural background diversity, social cohesion and modern prejudice, and the impact of such diversity, cohesion and prejudice on the quality of life. Using a sample of 743 residents of Prince George, British Columbia, we identified diverse ethnic or cultural groups, and created several indexes of heterogeneous social networks and a measure of modern prejudice. Dividing the total sample into three roughly distinct groups containing, respectively, respondents self-reporting an ethnic or cultural background that was aboriginal, non-aboriginal visible minority or anything else, we discovered that all significant comparisons indicated that people with aboriginal backgrounds reported a generally lower quality of life than those in the other two groups. The quality of life scores of the other two groups were practically indistinguishable. Given the demographic structure of our sample, the revealed differences could not be attributed to differences in socio-economic classes. Members of the largest group of respondents tended to be most prejudiced and optimistic, people with aboriginal backgrounds tended to be least prejudiced and optimistic and people with visible minority backgrounds tended to be between the other two groups. Regressions revealed that a variety of ethnic/culture-related phenomena could only explain 8%, 9% and 10%, respectively, of the variation in scores for happiness, life satisfaction and satisfaction with the overall quality of life. When domain satisfaction scores were added to the set of predictors, we were able to explain 48%, 69% and 54%, respectively, of the variation in scores for happiness, life satisfaction and satisfaction with the overall quality of life. In the presence of the domain satisfaction scores, the scores on the ethnic/cultural related phenomena added only one percentage point of explanatory power for happiness and life satisfaction, and three percentage points for satisfaction with the overall quality of life. All things considered, then, it is fair to say that this project showed that ethnic or cultural background diversity, social cohesion and modern prejudice had relatively very little impact on the quality of life of our sample of respondents.     

Residential preferences,community satisfaction,and the intention to move

This paper explores the role of size of place residential preference in the evolution of the intention to move out of the present community using data from the March 1974 NORC Amalgam Survey. People who prefer to live in a community having different size or location characteristics than their present residence are five times more likely to intend to move than those who have attained their preferred type of residence. Within these two groups, however, the particular configuration of current and preferred residence has no significant effect on the likelihood of intending to move. This finding justifies the creation of a simple dichotomous variable, preference status, contrasting these two groups. Community satisfaction and preference status are highly interrelated and each has an independent effect on intentions to move. Moreover, the effect of preference status on mobility intentions is somewhat larger than that for community satisfaction, indicating that residential preference plays a significant role in the decision-making process regarding migration.     

The spread of anti-natal knowledge and practice in Nigeria

Abstract In March/April 1969 the Demographic Training and Research Unit, University of Ife, surveyed 8,400 respondents of both sexes to investigate their knowledge and use of anti-natal practices and the sources of that knowledge. The area sampled was a stratified cross-section of Nigeria extending inland 500 miles from Lagos. Data are analysed by age cohorts of respondents and by the date of change in knowledge or practice. It is shown that anti-natal knowledge and practice decline with distance from Lagos, that contraception is widely practised amongst the richer towns and those with a higher proportion of educated people, and to a smaller extent among farmers than restricted knowledge or means would alone indicate. Recently the spread of both knowledge and practice has been faster than could be explained by socio-economic change and has largely resulted from changing attitudes to anti-natal practice and increased discussion of the subject in the world as a whole. Within Nigeria this has been helped by rising levels of urbanization and education, which are the two major determinants of anti-natal knowledge and practice in the country. The spread of such practice has led to an increased employment of traditional anti-natal methods, but this increase is small compared with the much greater resort now being made to modern contraception and induced abortion. The mass media have been of particular importance in introducing new knowledge, while the spread of such knowledge has owed most to discussions between friends of the same sex.     

The spread of HIV into the general population of the USA: A simulation

The spread of HIV from injection drug users and male homosexuals into the general US population is simulated, using survey data on sexual behavior. We estimate that approximately 150,000 persons are currently infected with HIV through heterosexual transmission, the majority of whom are female partners of drug-using or bisexual men. The estimated number of AIDS cases generated by the model is close to the CDC statistics for males, but much higher for females. We conclude that prevention efforts should be targeted towards these high risk groups rather than the general population.Abbreviations IDU injection drug users - NORC National Opinion Research Center; Chicago - STD sexually-transmitted disease     

Negativismr equivocation,and wobbly assent: public “support” for the prochoice platform on abortion

Although disapproval of all justifications for abortion is rare in the United States, our analysis of numerous surveys taken in the 1960s and 1970s shows that support for the full prochoice platform is also rare. This means that respondents who endorse some justifications for abortion and reject others typically constitute about 50 percent of these samples. If forced to choose politically between polar positions, would these people be more likely to side with a positive or a negative extreme? Using Multiple Classification Analysis as a form of discriminant analysis, we examine whether people who appear to form a “middle” group actually are closer in their characteristics to those who are positive, or to those who are negative. Finally, we test to see whether those respondents who endorse all four justifications for abortion (health, child defect, financial stress, and elective abortion) also endorse additional prochoice positions, such as government payments for abortion, abortion without the husband’s or the parent’s consent, and abortion after the first trimester.     

Census 2000 Partnership and Marketing Program Evaluation

To evaluate the Census 2000 integrated marketing strategy, the Census Bureau contracted with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) to conduct a national representative sample survey. In addition to having a nationalrepresentative sample, NORC oversampled populations whichare historically undercounted in the census. Using threecross-sectional mixed mode surveys, NORC obtained baseline,pre- and post-census measures of awareness, attitudes, knowledge,and mailback intentions over the period of the census. This paperreports on some of the preliminary results from the NORC reportof the Partnership and Marketing Program (PMP) evaluation.     

Family planning practice and women's fertility decision-making power

This paper investigates the effects of family planning practice on fertility decision-making power in South Korea. The log-linear analysis of the 1981 survey data by the Institute of Population and Health Services Research, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, shows that those urban and rural women who practice family planning or have experienced abortion exercise greater influence on a couple's fertility decision making than those who do not practice family planning or who have had no abortion experience. In addition, there is the interactive effect of abortion experience and contraceptive use on fertility decision making among urban women. This finding is significant because regardless of how birth control is available within a society, birth control use enhances women's decision making power where fertility is concerned.     

Residential preferences in a model of migration intentions

The congruence of stated residential preferences and observed migration behavior suggests that preferences may be important in the migration decision-making process. Using data from the March 1974 NORC Amalgam Survey, this analysis incorporates a measure of residential preference into a model of migration intentions similar to that developed by Speare (1974) for residential movement. Our results indicate that preferences and community satisfaction are interrelated and each has an independent effect on migration. We also find that the decision to migrate may be more directly influenced by ties to the community than is a residential move. Thus home ownership, age, and length of residence directly affect migration plans net of preferences and satisfaction, whereas only home ownership directly influenced the decision to move residentially in Speare's (1974) analysis.This research has been supported by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station (Journal Article #10,961), and by the Economic Development Division, Economic Statistics, and Cooperatives Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture through a cooperative agreement with the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Additional support was provided by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, the College of Social Sciences, Michigan State University, and by the Center for the Study of Metropolitan Problems, NIMH. Computer analysis was aided by a "Center for Population Research" grant, No. HDO5876, to the Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, from the Center for Population Research of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We wish to thank Dennis Hogan and Joel Nelson for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. James Zuiches is currently on leave from Michigan State University.     

Confidence in selected institutions in 1975: An attempt at replication across two national surveys

A comparison of responses to four attitudinal items included in two national surveys reveals significant differences between surveys in the marginal distributions of all four items. These discrepancies are attributed to differences in survey ‘context’ (i.e., the nature of the questions which preceded the items of interest in the interview schedules). Despite the differences in marginal distributions, however, the four items showed identical relationships in both surveys to five background characteristics of respondents in 18 of 20 tests. Although the generalizability of these findings to other attitudinal items is an open question, they do suggest the inadvisability of combining data collected in surveys using markedly different interview schedules into a time series of subjective social indicators. Contextual effects are apparently less critical in cross-sectional analyses of survey data.     

中国老年人的主观年龄及影响因素分析

随着中国老龄化进程的加快,越来越多的研究开始探讨老年的定义和标准,但很少有研究直观地描述和分析老年人对自身进入老年的年龄标准的看法以及其主观年龄的差异。本研究使用2014年至2018年中国老年社会追踪调查的三期数据,比较分析不同队列在不同实际年龄(日历年龄)下认定的自身进入老年的年龄标准的变化以及不同实际年龄老年人的主观年龄的差异。数据分析结果显示受访者自我认定的老年的年龄标准平均为70岁,远高于社会上通常认定的60岁或65岁的标准;主观年龄和主观外表年龄平均在68岁左右,低于受访者的平均实际年龄(71岁),超过六成的受访者的主观年龄与主观外表年龄比实际年龄"更年轻"。进一步的统计模型分析结果显示健康状况越好、与子女同住、有广泛的朋友支持网络以及更愿意参与村居委会投票的老年人所认定的自己进入老年的年龄标准也更高。更多的社区娱乐场所或设施和室外活动场地也能显著地提高受访者认定的进入老年的年龄标准。更高的受教育程度以及更好的健康状况是促使老年人的主观年龄和主观外表年龄小于实际年龄的重要因素。本文直观地描述了不同实际年龄的老年人所认定的自身进入老年的年龄标准以及其主观年龄与实际年龄的差异,为...     

Estimates of induced abortion in urban North Carolina

In 1965, Warner developed an interviewing procedure designed to eliminate evasive answer bias when questions of a sensitive nature are asked. He called the procedure ‘randomized response.’ The authors have been studying the technique for several years and, in this paper, are reporting some of the estimates of induced abortion in urban North Carolina using randomized response. Estimates of the proportion of women having an abortion during the past year among women 18–44 years of age are reported. For the study population indices were developed relating induced abortion to total conceptions for whites and nonwhites. The illegal abortion rate per 100 conceptions was estimated to be 14.9 for whites and 32.9 for nonwhites. Estimates of the proportion of women having an abortion during their lifetime among women 18 years old or over are also shown. Among ever married women, the proportion having an abortion during their lifetime declined as education increased. Estimates were high for women with 5 or more pregnancies. Most of the respondents stated that they were satisfied that the randomized response approach would not reveal their personal situation. Furthermore, they did not think their friends would truthfully respond to adirect question regarding abortion.