Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (E-Journal)
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A comparison of response rates in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and the Health and Retirement Study
Get PDFSurvey response rates are an important measure of the quality of a survey; this is true for both longitudinal and cross-sectional surveys. However, the concept of a response rate in the context of a panel survey is more complex than is the case for a cross-sectional survey. There are typically many different response rates that can be calculated for a panel survey, each of which may be relevant for a specific purpose. The main objective of our paper is to document and compare response rates for two long-term panel studies of ageing, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in the United States. To guide our selection and calculation of response rates for the two studies, we use a framework that was developed by Peter Lynn (2009) and present several different types of longitudinal response rates for the two surveys. We discuss similarities and differences in the study designs and protocols and how some of the differences affect comparisons of response rates across the two studies
Social class returns to higher education: chances of access to the professional and managerial salariat for men in three British birth cohorts
Get PDFIn economics there is a well-established tradition of research into the earnings returns to education. We aim to make a sociological contribution by focusing on the social class returns: specifically, by examining the returns to higher education as indicated by chances of access to the professional and managerial salariat, while also taking into account the effects of cognitive ability and class origins and differences in access to professional and managerial positions. We draw on data for men from three British birth cohort studies covering children born in 1946, 1958 and 1970. We find that while over the period covered the growth of the salariat ensured that absolute returns to both higher and lower tertiary qualifications were largely maintained, despite the growing numbers with such qualifications, returns relative to those to higher secondary qualifications diminished. Also, the advantages offered by lower tertiary qualifications as compared with higher secondary qualifications differ according to men’s class origins. Overall, there is no evidence of any increase in education-based, meritocratic selection to the salariat. Rather, the growth of the salariat appears to be associated with some decline in its selectivity in terms of both qualifications and cognitive ability, with this decline being more marked in its managerial than in its professional components
The role of attitudes and behaviours in explaining socio-economic differences in attainment at age 11
Get PDFThis paper explores the correlates of the socio-economic gradient in children’s educational performance through the primary school years. Thus it sits between the companion papers on pre-school cognitive outcomes and attainment in the secondary school years in this Special Issue. The poorest 20% of children score, on average 14 percentile points lower than the middle 20% in Key Stage 2 tests at age 11, and 31 percentile points lower than the richest 20%. Overall around one third of the attainment gaps by socio-economic background at age 11 are found to emerge after age 7. The evolution of attainment gaps over this period is found to be related a range of attitudes to education and behavioural patterns of the study children. Low maternal aspirations for the child’s final educational attainment are strongly linked to the widening socio-economic gap during these years, over and above their influence on the child’s own measured attitudes and behaviours
Non-employment, age, and the economic cycle
Get PDFWe describe the relationship between non-employment rates and age in Britain and consider how this relationship has been changing with the economic cycle. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey for survey years 1991–2008 and Understanding Society for 2009, we show that non-employment rates have changed most for people in the youngest and oldest age groups. Young people have been hit particularly hard by the current recession and non-employment rates are higher now than during the early-1990s recession, especially for those without educational qualifications. Among older men and women, non-employment rates have been in longer-term decline and the current recession has had a less marked effect. Hence the U-shaped non-employment/age relationship has rotated clockwise over the last decade
Educational attainment, labour market conditions and the timing of births
Get PDFThis paper presents analyses of the effects of women’s education and the rate of aggregate unemployment on birth hazards using data from the 1958 and 1970 British cohort studies. The hazard of first birth was negatively associated with higher levels of education. Once controls for unobservables were included, there was no relationship between education and the hazard of second births. Lagged unemployment was found to be negatively related to first birth hazards but this was only statistically significant among the later cohort, while for higher order births there was evidence of a positive association with unemployment.
Family caring and children's reading and math skills
Get PDFThis paper investigates the influence of “family caring” on children’s reading and mathematics test scores, controlling for the family’s resources. Family caring is the parents’ habits regarding nurturing their children; it is measured by the behavior of parents during the pregnancy and infancy of their child. Three hypotheses are developed and are empirically tested using three generations of data from the British NCDS. Controlling for family resources, family caring as measured here, is found to be strongly correlated with children’s reading and math skills. There is evidence that particularly low levels of family resources or family caring can be compensated for by larger investments of the other. Since the data cover three generations of the same families, the study documents that the cross-generational correlations in family resources and in family caring behaviors are of approximately the same order of magnitude.
A fishy story: the roles of rods and nets in maintaining representative longitudinal survey samples
Get PDFThis is the editorial
Single-sex and co-educational secondary schooling: what are the social and family outcomes, in the short and longer term?
Get PDFThis paper considers the question of whether attending a single-sex or co-educational secondary school made any difference to a range of social outcomes for girls and boys at school, and for men and women as they progressed through the life course. We examine these questions using data from a large and nationally representative sample of British respondents born in 1958. The outcomes examined include whether or not the participants liked school; their histories of partnership formation and dissolution; childbearing; attitudes to gender roles; and well-being. Among the minority of outcomes showing a significant link to attending a single sex school were lower truancy, and for males, dislike of school, divorce, and malaise at 42 (if they had been to private or grammar schools)