The interviewer effect when there is an education gap with the respondent: Evidence from a survey on biotechnology in Taiwan

Survey methodologists are concerned that the interviewer’s characteristics may affect respondents’ answers. This paper investigates how the interviewer’s education interacts with the respondent’s perceptions and in turn affects the latter’s responses to hard questions in a biotechnology survey in Taiwan. Our results indicate that respondents with little education (junior high school or below) react to highly-educated interviewers by giving more substantive answers to both knowledge questions and attitude questions. These findings are consistent with findings in the literature on social psychology whereby the respondents can infer from the interviewer’s appearance and behavior whether the latter seems more knowledgeable than themselves, and that in interacting with someone with much more education, the one with little education senses his or her inferiority and tries to conform to the perceived expectations.     

Are we keeping the people who used to stay? Changes in correlates of panel survey attrition over time

As survey response rates decline, correlates of survey participation may also be changing. Panel studies provide an opportunity to study a rich set of correlates of panel attrition over time. We look at changes in attrition rates in the American National Election Studies from 1964 to 2004, a repeated panel survey with a two-wave pre-post election design implemented over multiple decades. We examine changes in attrition rates by three groups of variables: sociodemographic and ecological characteristics of the respondent and household, party affiliation and political and social attitudes recorded at the first interview, and paradata about the first wave interview. We find relatively little overall change in the pre-post election panel attrition rates, but important changes in demographic correlates of panel attrition over time. We also examine contact and cooperation rates from 1988 to 2004.     

The impact of respondents and interviewers on interview speed in face-to-face interviews

In surveys carried out by interviewers trained according to the key principle of standardized interviewing it is assumed that the interviewer has only limited impact on the time a respondent needs to answer questions. In the paper the effects of interviewers and respondent characteristics on interview speed are analyzed simultaneously by means of a three-level random coefficient model. Data from the fifth round of the European Social Survey (ESS) are used. In twelve participating countries (CAPI) timers were implemented at several places in the questionnaire. Based on this time information the interview speed (number of questions asked per minute) was measured for each respondent during five modules of the questionnaire. The results support most of the expectations concerning the effects of the respondent characteristics. However, the results also indicate that, for all countries, interviewers strongly determine the interview speed and that interview length is not a simple linear function of the number of questions in a questionnaire.     

Gender and venture capital decision-making: The effects of technical background and social capital on entrepreneurial evaluations

Research on gender and workplace decision-making tends to address either supply-side disparities between men’s and women’s human and social capital, or demand-side differences in the status expectations of women and men workers. In addition, this work often relies on causal inferences drawn from empirical data collected on worker characteristics and their workplace outcomes. In this study, we demonstrate how tangible education and work history credentials – typically associated with supply-side characteristics – work in tandem with cultural beliefs about gender to influence the evaluative process that underlies venture capital decisions made in high-growth, high-tech entrepreneurship. Using an experimental design, we simulate funding decisions by venture capitalists (VCs) for men and women entrepreneurs that differ in technical background and the presence of important social ties. We demonstrate the presence of two distinct aspects of VCs’ evaluation: that of the venture and that of the entrepreneur, and find that the gender of the entrepreneur influences evaluations most when the person, rather than the venture, is the target of evaluation. Technical background qualifications moderate the influence of gendered expectations, and women receive more of a payoff than men from having a close contact to the evaluating VC. We discuss the implications for future research on gender and work.     

单位体制下男女平等就业的政治过程及其局限性

计划经济时代,中国在男女平等就业方面取得了巨大的成就,这些成就是国家通过单位体制的制度设置,运用政治过程推动和实践的结果。单位组织作为联结国家和个人的中介,将男女平等的国家意识形态在就业方面予以贯彻落实。同时,单位组织自身的福利性质以及对家庭功能的替代为女性的平等就业提供了条件。但是,在单位体制下,促进就业平等的政治过程仍然存在着局限性,主要表现为女性比较难以进入核心部门;在组织中处在较低的职位层次;片面的平等对女性造成身心伤害。这些被平均主义分配政策掩盖的问题在市场化改革后逐渐显露出来。单位制度的变革,一方面使男女平等就业失去了有力的组织和制度保证;另一方面,也在为克服以往性别平等的局限性创造着条件。     

Network effects across the earnings distribution: Payoffs to visible and invisible job finding assistance

This study makes three critical contributions to the “Do Contacts Matter?” debate. First, the widely reported null relationship between informal job searching and wages is shown to be mostly the artifact of a coding error and sample selection restrictions. Second, previous analyses examined only active informal job searching without fully considering the benefits derived from unsolicited network assistance (the “invisible hand of social capital”) – thereby underestimating the network effect. Third, wage returns to networks are examined across the earnings distribution. Longitudinal data from the NLSY reveal significant wage returns for network-based job finding over formal job searching, especially for individuals who were informally recruited into their jobs (non-searchers). Fixed effects quantile regression analyses show that contacts generate wage premiums among middle and high wage jobs, but not low wage jobs. These findings challenge conventional wisdom on contact effects and advance understanding of how social networks affect wage attainment and inequality.     

城市老年人主观幸福感的影响因素:豫省例证

通过对开封市六个社区老年人调查数据的统计分析发现,老年人主观幸福感的高低并非取决于诸如性别、年龄、教育、退休前的单位类型等外在的个体特征,而是家庭状况和社区因素。家庭关系越和睦,子女越多,社区服务水平越高,社区内邻里交往越频繁,老年人的主观幸福感越高。     

Women's age at first marriage and postmarital agency in Egypt

Early – or child – marriage (before age 18) may diminish women's ability to exercise agency, or their capacity to act upon their goals. Using a propensity score adjustment approach, we analyzed data from 2394 married women ages 35–49 years who participated in the 2006 Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS). We examined whether women's first marriage at age 18 or older was associated with their post-marital agency, measured in terms of their influence in family decisions, freedom of movement in public spaces, and unfavorable views about intimate partner violence against wives. In bivariate analyses, women's age at first marriage was positively associated with their decision-making and more equitable gender attitudes. However, once we controlled for selection into age-at-first-marriage groups, there were no significant differences between the two age-at-first-marriage groups in any dimension of women's agency. We examined the sensitivity of the non-significant age-at-first-marriage effects to possible violations of the strong ignorability assumption and the results did not alter our conclusions. The assumption that women's age at first marriage is a proxy for their post-marital agency, as defined here, warrants further study.     

关于宗教和邪教的思考

宗教作为一种社会意识形态有着自身鲜明的社会特征 ,而邪教则是披着宗教外衣的邪恶势力 ,二者特点不同。宗教对社会既有消极的影响 ,也有积极的作用 ,其社会作用呈现二重性的统一。但邪教对社会却纯害无益 ,其危害严重 ,实质反动。对宗教和邪教应采取不同政策。应采取有针对性的措施来保护合法宗教活动 ,打击邪教势力。     

Social isolation,survey nonresponse,and nonresponse bias: An empirical evaluation using social network data within an organization

Survey researchers have long hypothesized that social isolation negatively affects the probability of survey participation and biases survey estimates. Previous research, however, has relied on proxy measures of isolation, such as being a marginalized group member within a population. We re-examine the relationship between social isolation and survey participation using direct measures of social isolation derived from social network data; specifically, instrumental research and expressive friendship connections among faculty within academic departments. Using a reconceptualization of social isolation, we find that social network isolation is negatively associated with unit response. Among women (a numerical minority group within the organization), we further find that social group isolation (i.e., lacking instrumental network connections to men, the majority group in the organization) is negatively associated with survey participation. Finally, we show that some survey estimates are systematically biased due to nonparticipation from socially isolated people.     

He said, she said: The gender wage gap according to self and proxy reports in the Current Population Survey

Roughly half the labor force data in the Current Population Survey (CPS) are provided by proxy respondents, and since 1979, men’s reliance on proxies has dropped dramatically while women’s reliance on proxies has increased. Few authors, however, have examined how combining these first-hand and second-hand reports may influence our understanding of long-term economic trends. We exploit the outgoing rotation group structure of the CPS by matching individual records one year apart, and we find that self-reported wages are higher than proxy-reported wages even after controlling for all time invariant characteristics. Furthermore, we find that changes in the use of proxy respondents by men and women since 1979 have made current estimates of the gender wage gap larger than they would have been without changes in reporting status. This suggests that the gender wage gap has closed more than previously estimated. We recommend that researchers combine self and proxy responses with great care, especially when analyzing time trends or making gender comparisons.     

Fear of violence during armed conflict: Social roles and responsibilities as determinants of fear

This article investigates the prevalence and determinants of fear as a consequence of living through armed conflict. We use survey data from Nepal during the armed conflict (1996–2006) to examine how trauma, sex and gender, age, marriage, and household size affect fear of violence. We also disaggregate types of worry, and find substantial variance on whether respondents were more concerned about livelihood consequences of conflict than physical danger. We supplement quantitative analyses with discussion of in-depth interviews from the study area on these same topics. Overall, our results highlight the enduring impact of gender roles in Nepal and that conflict might disproportionately affect those who are already vulnerable and have greater social responsibilities. This article provides a unique comparison between fear of violence during armed conflict in a low-income country to the fear of crime literature based in high-income countries.     

Should we trust survey data? Assessing response simplification and data fabrication

While many factors, such as unit- and item nonresponse, threaten data quality, we focus on data contamination that arises primarily from task simplification processes. We argue that such processes can occur at two levels. First, respondents themselves may engage in various response strategies that minimize their time and effort in completing the survey. Second, interviewers and other employees of the research institute might take various shortcuts to reduce their time and/or to fulfill the requirements of their contracts; in the simplest form this can be done via copy-and-paste procedures.This paper examines the cross-national quality of the reports from principals of schools participating in the 2009 PISA. We introduce two measures of data quality to document that extreme response simplification characterizes the behavior of substantial numbers of school principals in numerous countries. Additionally, we discovered strong evidence of data fabrication in several countries.     

New strategies for biosample collection in population-based social research

This paper aims to increase understanding of the methodological issues involved in adding biomeasures to social research by investigating the potential of an event-triggered, self-collection technique for monitoring biological response to social events. We use data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study, which collected saliva samples triggered by a life event important to the aims of the study – the end of a romantic relationship. Our investigation found little evidence that those who complied in the biosample collection were different from those who did not comply in terms of key study measures and sociodemographic characteristics. We also found no evidence that the biosample collection had adverse consequences for subsequent panel participation. We did find that prior cooperation in the study was an important predictor of biosample cooperation, which is important information in developing biosample collection strategies. As demand for biological samples directly linked to social data continues to grow, effective low-cost collection methods will become increasingly valuable. The evidence here indicates that self-collected biosamples may offer tremendous potential to meet this demand.     

Working and disability expectancies at older ages: The role of childhood circumstances and education

The ability to work at older ages depends on health and education. Both accumulate starting very early in life. We assess how childhood disadvantages combine with education to affect working and health trajectories. Applying multistate period life tables to data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) for the period 2008–2014, we estimate how the residual life expectancy at age 50 is distributed in number of years of work and disability, by number of childhood disadvantages, gender, and race/ethnicity. Our findings indicate that number of childhood disadvantages is negatively associated with work and positively with disability, irrespective of gender and race/ethnicity. Childhood disadvantages intersect with low education resulting in shorter lives, and redistributing life years from work to disability. Among the highly educated, health and work differences between groups of childhood disadvantage are small. Combining multistate models and inverse probability weighting, we show that the return of high education is greater among the most disadvantaged.     

Physical-psychiatric comorbidity: Implications for health measurement and the Hispanic Epidemiological Paradox

Few studies examine the co-occurrence of physical and psychiatric health problems (physical-psychiatric comorbidity), and whether these patterns differ across social groups. Using the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication and National Latino and Asian American Study, the current study asks: what are the patterns of physical-psychiatric comorbidity (PPC) between non-Hispanic Whites and Latino subgroups, further differentiated by gender and nativity? Does the PPC measurement approach reveal different patterns across groups compared to when only physical or only psychiatric health problems are the health outcomes of interest? To what extent do sociodemographic characteristics (SES, stress exposure, social support, immigration-related factors) explain PPC differences between groups? Results reveal that compared to U.S.-born non-Hispanic White men, island-born Puerto Rican men experience elevated PPC risk. Mexican and Other Latino women and men experience relatively lower risk of PPC relative to their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Social factors explain some of the health disadvantage of island-born Puerto Rican men, but do not explain the health advantage of Mexicans and Other Latinos.     

Underestimating busyness: Indications of nonresponse bias due to work-family conflict and time pressure

International research shows that both work-family conflict and time pressure are increasing in Western societies. With these increased pressures, precisely those people who are combining work and family obligations may be missing from survey estimates. This study investigates whether the measurement of work-family conflict (WFC) and time pressure is influenced by nonresponse bias. Using the Flemish “Work, Family and Time use in Flanders”-survey and the Basic Question survey for nonrespondents of this survey, we investigate whether nonrespondents score higher on subjective and objective indicators of WFC and time pressure than respondents. Results show that nonrespondents are indeed those sample units who experience significantly more WFC and time pressure, demonstrating that WFC and time pressure related nonresponse biases exist. Implications and suggestions to reduce bias in data collections are discussed.     

Education, gender, and migration in the context of social change

Although sociologists have identified education as likely determinant of migration, the ways in which education affects migration are unclear and empirical results are disparate. This paper addresses the relationship between educational attainment, enrolment, and migration, focusing on the role of gender and how it changes with evolving social contexts. Using empirical analyses based in Nepal, results indicate that educational attainment has positive effects and enrolment has negative effects on out-migration and including enrolment in the model increases the effect of attainment. In the case of women, with the changing role of gender, increased education and labor force participation, the affect of educational attainment changes drastically over time, from almost no effect, to a strong positive effect. Consideration of enrolment, and the role of gender in education, employment, and marriage may help to explain the disparate results in past research on education and migration.     

New options for national population surveys: The implications of internet and smartphone coverage

Challenges to survey data collection have increased the costs of social research via face-to-face surveys so much that it may become extremely difficult for social scientists to continue using these methods. A key drawback to less expensive Internet-based alternatives is the threat of biased results from coverage errors in survey data. The rise of Internet-enabled smartphones presents an opportunity to re-examine the issue of Internet coverage for surveys and its implications for coverage bias. Two questions (on Internet access and smartphone ownership) were added to the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), a U.S. national probability survey of women and men age 15–44, using a continuous sample design. We examine 16 quarters (4 years) of data, from September 2012 to August 2016.Overall, we estimate that 82.9% of the target NSFG population has Internet access, and 81.6% has a smartphone. Combined, this means that about 90.7% of U.S. residents age 15–44 have Internet access, via either traditional devices or a smartphone. We find some evidence of compensatory coverage when looking at key race/ethnicity and age subgroups. For instance, while Black teens (15–18) have the lowest estimated rate of Internet access (81.9%) and the lowest rate of smartphone usage (72.6%), an estimated 88.0% of this subgroup has some form of Internet access.We also examine the socio-demographic correlates of Internet and smartphone coverage, separately and combined, as indicators of technology access in this population. In addition, we look at the effect of differential coverage on key estimates produced by the NSFG, related to fertility, family formation, and sexual activity. While this does not address nonresponse or measurement biases that may differ for alternative modes, our paper has implications for possible coverage biases that may arise when switching to a Web-based mode of data collection, either for follow-up surveys or to replace the main face-to-face data collection.     

Why does college education matter? Unveiling the contributions of selection factors

This study investigates the contributions of pre-college selection factors that may partially lead to the college degree – health link by using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979) cohort. Propensity score matching method finds that the effects of college degree on various health outcomes (self-rated health, physical component summary index, health limitations, CESD scale) are reduced by 51% on average (range: 37%–70%) in the matched sample. Among these observed factors, cognitive skill is the biggest confounder, followed by pre-college health and socioeconomic characteristics (marital aspiration, years of schooling, marriage, fertility, poverty status) and non-cognitive skills (e.g., self-esteem). Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control scale is not significantly associated with all four health measures. The effects of most indicators of family background (parental education, family stability, family size, religious background) on the health of adult children are not direct but through offspring's early adulthood health and socioeconomic status.