Deborah S. Freedman

Changes in the Sex Role Attitudes of Women, 1962-1977: Evidence from a Panel Study.

An analysis of data collected from a sample of 1161 white women in the Detroit area who were interviewed in 1962 and reinterviewed in 1977 revealed that the women had adopted more equalitarian attitudes toward sex roles during the 15 year period. Changes in attitude were more apparent when the women were questioned about their attitudes toward broad principles of sexual equality than when they were questioned about their attitude toward specific aspects of sex role behavior. Those women surveyed in 1962 who were younger those who had more education those who were married to men with higher educational levels and those who reported working in 1962 were more likely to have developed equalitarian attitudes by 1977. Women surveyed in 1962 who had large families at the time of the interview and adhered to fundamentalist Protestant beliefs were more likely to continue to hold traditional attitudes in 1977. The experience of women during the 15 year period also accounted for some of the attitude shifts. Those who had acquired additional education and those who reported working at some time during the 15 year period were more likely to develop equalitarian attitudes than those who did not acquire additional education or work experience during the 15 year interim. Tables present 1) correlations between selected socioeconomic and educational variables and changes in sex role attitudes; 2) % distribution of women by sex role attitudes for 1962 and 1977; and 3) distribution of women by selected socioeconomic and educational characteristics for 1962.

Changes in fertility expectations and preferences between 1962 and 1977: Their relation to final parity

Changing fertility expectations and preferences from 1962 to 1977 are compared with final parity in a longitudinal study. Results are strongly affected by initial parity in 1962. Final parity, 27 percent below expectations for those initially childless, illustrates the effect for couples free to change expectations downward of declining fertility preferences. Changes in expectations early in marriage had a significant long-term effect on final parity, as did early differences between wife’s expectations and husband’s preferences. Unplanned births increased final parity significantly. Religion, education, and income had no systematic relation to the discrepancy between initial expectations and final parity.

Income and fertility: The elusive relationship

This paper uses longitudinal data for 1962–1977 to examine the relationship of husband’s income to 1962 expected fertility, to final parity, and to the discrepancy between initial expectations and final parity, separately for four groups of women who in 1962 either had just given birth to a first, second, or fourth child or had just been married. Although economic reasons frequently were cited in 1977 for downward revisions in family size goals, husband’s income was not positively related to fertility in three of the four parity groups. For the merged sample, excluding women with unwanted births, husband’s income showed a small positive relationship to completed fertility.

Changing attitudes toward marriage and single life.

Attitudes about the primacy of marriage as a way of life have changed markedly over the past two decades. The legitimacy of singleness as a life-style is increasingly recognized by young people and their parents; most Americans no longer regard getting married as necessarily better than remaining single and do not disapprove of those who eschew marriage. Although most young people interviewed in the 1980 Study of American Families say that they would be bothered at least a little by failure to marry, relatively few say they would be greatly bothered by that outcome. It is somewhat surprising that the mothers of these young people also report fairly evenhanded attitudes regarding marriage for their children, suggesting that the younger generation will probably not experience much parental pressure to marry. Although the imperative to marry has weakened and the perceived advantages of marriage as compared to single life have declined, marriage continues to be valued by the majority of young Americans as shown in several studies of attitudes toward marriage. More than 90 percent expect to marry and there has been almost no decline in that proportion since 1960. What is more, despite the high levels of divorce, most young people say that they expect their marriages to be lasting. What has changed about marriage plans has been the rising age at which young people, especially young women, expect to marry--an expectation reflected in the increasing age at which Americans are actually marrying. There also seems to be a widespread desire not to let marriage interfere with education and to obtain some work experience before marriage. Marriage continues to be more important to young women than young men, despite recent trends toward more egalitarian sex roles. There is some evidence that experience with divorce increases negative attitudes about marriage and favorable ones about singleness as a way of life.

Size of Family and Preference for Children of Each Sex

Preference for at least one child of each sex has a minor, but significant, influence in determining whether couples with two, there, or four children expect to have and do have an additional child. This relationship was found to persist with a number of socioeconomic and demographic controls. Its importance increases with the number of children of identical sex. The analysis is based on the data from a national probability sample of white married women in the child-bearing years.

Maintaining Response Rates In Longitudinal Studies

A recognized problem in mounting longitudinal surveys concerns the costs and difficulties in maintaining response rates over time. This article details the techniques used to minimize response loss in a longitudinal study which maintained an 89% response rate over five interviews covering a fifteen-year period. These techniques centered on two problems common to all longitudinal studies: the difficulties involved in relocating respondents for subsequent interviews, and the necessity of maintaining respondent cooperation over repeated interviews.

Obtaining Respondent Cooperation in Family Panel Studies

Problems of maintaining respondent rapport in surveys are exacerbated when respondents are asked to participate repeatedly over time or when several members of a family are interviewed. This article details the techniques used to maintain respondent rapport in a longitudinal study involving six interviews over eighteen years, which, after being expanded to include a second family member, still included 85% of the original respondents. The article describes techniques designed to assist and motivate the interviewers to do an effective job and those utilized to make the interviewing process pleasant and rewarding for the respondents.

The long-term impact of pregnancy at marriage on the family's economic circumstances.

In the long run, premaritally pregnant white couples seem able to overcome the problems stemming from early marriage and parenthood. They earn middle-class incomes, own their homes, have some savings. But they do have 22 percent less in total assets and they have more unplanned children than couples who married and deferred childbearing.

Age at first birth and family size: Evidence from a longitudinal study

The relationship of age at 1st birth and subsequent fertility was examined by introducing into the analysis some measures of orientation toward family roles not usually available in other studies. The data source was a longitudinal study spanning the 1962-77 period. The sample drawn from 1961 birth and marriage registrations constitutes a probability sample of all white women in the Detroit metropolitan area who had just married or who had just had a 1st 2nd or 4th birth. 5 interviews were completed during this period. Excellent response rates were obtained throughout the study with 1157 women constituting 89% of the original sample still participating in 1977. The findings confirmed the expected negative association between age at 1st birth and completed family size. For the sample as a whole the average number of children ever born in 1977 declined monotonically with age at 1st birth. Within separate parity groups the relationship of fertility to age at 1st birth was not as strong and somewhat less regular but a monotonic inverse relationship again appeared within parity groups (with 1 minor exception) when respondentss background (wifes education religion and number of siblings; respondents fathers education and occupation) were controlled. Of the background variables wifes religion exerted the strongest effect on the relationship between fertility and age at 1st birth. Catholic women had larger families than other women and also married at older ages. Work experience between marriage and 1962 including current work was associated positively with age at 1st birth. The differentials in the proportion with some work since marriage associated with age at 1st birth were sizable and the differences were statistically significant for parities 0 1 and 2. The combined index of sex role attitudes had no regular relationship to age at 1st birth. Women who were very young at 1st birth (under age 20) in every parity group did express more traditional attitudes but there were no attitudinal differentials associated with later ages at 1st birth. When the 3 role orientation variables were added to the regression analysis they had no effect on the age at 1st birth/fertility relationship beyond that accounted for by the background variables. Neither home oriented behavior nor traditional sex role attitudes accounted for the higher fertility of women who had their 1st birth at an early age. Women who had an early 1st birth went on to have larger families than women who postponed childbearing longer.

Consumption of modern goods and services and it's relation to fertility: A study in Taiwan

A survey in Taiwan showed that couples whose consumption patterns emphasize modem goods and services also exhibit modern fertility behaviour, i.e. they cite a somewhat lower ideal family size and are considerably more likely to be using contraception. Since the ownership of modern goods in Taiwan does not appear to be achieved at the expense of either savings or educational aspirations, a suggested hypothesis is that economic development, by fostering new wants, may encourage couples to limit family size.