Earnings,relative income,and family formation

The probability of first marriage for men who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957 was analyzed with respect to their Social Security earnings records, Wisconsin income tax reports for parents, and other variables. The findings provide no support for Easterlin's hypothesis that marriage will occur earlier when young men judge their economic prospects favorably with respect to their parents' income. However, young men's earnings and time spent in schooling to increase them were found to be important influences on marriage timing. Additional schooling had little effect net of the time it absorbed.     

Socioeconomic Achievement and Religion: The American Case

Religious preference at several points in the life cycle is examined with regard to its affect on socioeconomic achievement and with regard to how religious preference is influenced by education, occupation, and income. The importance of considering the several major denominations separately instead of as a single category is demonstrated. When this is done Jews, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians have above average socioeconomic achievements; Methodists and Catholics are near the mean; and Baptists are below the average. Controlling for social origins and early achievements greatly attenuates the differences, but does not remove them with regard to education and income.     

Suicide and Educational Attainment in a Transitional Society*

The sociological evidence available to date has not firmly established the relationship between suicide and social status. It is postulated here that societies in different stages of development may manifest different patterns of etiology of suicide, and thus the suicide rates of different social strata may change over time. Educational attainment is used as an indicator of social status, rather than “usual” occupations as in previous studies. From an analysis of a transitional society, it is concluded: first, the relation between suicide and social status is negative; and second, with coming societal changes, it is likely that the relation between suicide and social status will also change.     

Public opinion surveys as guides to public policy and spending

Public opinion surveys purport to express the public's opinion. The literature on survey techniques has, however, recognized various potential limitations to the validity of survey results. While improved survey methodology may reduce statistical bias and improve validity, it cannot avoid the implicit weighting of preferences. This normative aspect of surveying has often been unrecognized or disguised as a purely technical matter. Such things as sample selection, choice of survey instrument and the method of aggregating results will each contribute to a pattern of preference weights. Several common survey techniques are examined in this light. It is proposed that no single ‘correct’ method of preference aggragation exists. Increased public recognition of, and debate on this normative aspect of surveying is recommended.     

Combining Food Frequency and Survey Data to Quantify Long-Term Dietary Exposure: A Methyl Mercury Case Study

Twenty-four-hour recall data from the Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals (CSFII) are frequently used to estimate dietary exposure for risk assessment. Food frequency questionnaires are traditional instruments of epidemiological research; however, their application in dietary exposure and risk assessment has been limited. This article presents a probabilistic method of bridging the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) food frequency and the CSFII data to estimate longitudinal (usual) intake, using a case study of seafood mercury exposures for two population subgroups (females 16 to 49 years and children 1 to 5 years). Two hundred forty-nine CSFII food codes were mapped into 28 NHANES fish/shellfish categories. FDA and state/local seafood mercury data were used. A uniform distribution with minimum and maximum blood-diet ratios of 0.66 to 1.07 was assumed. A probabilistic assessment was conducted to estimate distributions of individual 30-day average daily fish/shellfish intakes, methyl mercury exposure, and blood levels. The upper percentile estimates of fish and shellfish intakes based on the 30-day daily averages were lower than those based on two- and three-day daily averages. These results support previous findings that distributions of "usual" intakes based on a small number of consumption days provide overestimates in the upper percentiles. About 10% of the females (16 to 49 years) and children (1 to 5 years) may be exposed to mercury levels above the EPA's RfD. The predicted 75th and 90th percentile blood mercury levels for the females in the 16-to-49-year group were similar to those reported by NHANES. The predicted 90th percentile blood mercury levels for children in the 1-to-5-year subgroup was similar to NHANES and the 75th percentile estimates were slightly above the NHANES.