I C P S R

National Institute on Aging

Description & Citation--Study No. 3812

Bibliographic Description

ICPSR Study No.:3812
 
Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03812
 
Title:Marital Instability Over the Life Course [United States]: A Six-Wave Panel Study, 1980, 1983, 1988, 1992-1994, 1997, 2000
 
Principal Investigator(s):Alan Booth, Pennsylvania State University
 
  David Johnson, Pennsylvania State University
 
  Paul Amato, Pennsylvania State University
 
  Stacy Rogers, Pennsylvania State University
 
Series:Marital Instability Over the Life Course Series
 
Funding Agency:United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institute on Aging
 
Grant Number:1-RO1-AGO4146
 
Bibliographic Citation:Booth, Alan, David Johnson, Paul Amato, and Stacy Rogers. Marital Instability Over the Life Course [United States]: A Six-Wave Panel Study, 1980, 1983, 1988, 1992-1994, 1997, 2000 [Computer file]. ICPSR03812-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-03-02. doi:10.3886/ICPSR03812
 

Scope of Study

Summary:To examine the causes of marital instability throughout the life course, six waves of data were collected between 1980 and 2000 from married individuals who were between the ages of 18 and 55 in 1980. Information collected in 1980 (Wave I) focused on the effects of wives' participation in the labor force on marriage and marital instability. Measures predicting marital instability and divorce and assessing marital quality were developed. Variables include information on earnings, commitment to work, hours worked, and occupational status. The focus of Wave II, conducted in 1983, was to link changes in factors such as economic resources, wife's employment, presence of children, marital satisfaction, life goals, and health to actions intended to dissolve a marriage, such as divorce and permanent separation. Information on adjustment to marital dissolution, relationship with in-laws, size of home, parents' employment, use of free time, club membership, child-care arrangements, and responsibility for chores was gathered. Wave III, collected in 1988, further examined the impact of changes in employment, economics, and health on marital relationships. Questions were asked about divorce and remarriage, investment of energy and resource use in the care of aging parents and dependent offspring, asset value, awareness of aging, mental health issues, and history of disease. In 1992, Wave IV data were collected to look at changes in employment, economics, and health. Questions were asked about retirement issues, family structure, and the impact of caring for aging parents while at the same time caring for dependent offspring. Data were also collected in 1992 and 1994 from adult offspring who were living in the household in 1980 and had reached age 19 by 1992, thus providing parallel measures with their parents regarding the quality of parent-child relationships, attitudes, and support along with exploring the impact of childhood experiences on the transition to adult life. In 1997, the fifth wave was collected and interviews were conducted with a second sample of adult offspring (N=202) along with second interviews of offspring selected in 1992 (N=606). Wave V also examined the relationship between marital quality and stability and how it relates to changes in marital quality later in life. In 2000, Wave VI data were collected. Included with the adult panel was a panel obtained from the offspring who participated in 1992 or 1997, a replicate of the original cross-section study completed in 1980 (comprised of currently married persons between the ages of 19 and 55), along with a comparison sample made up of persons who were married in 1980 and were between 39 and 75 years old. The investigators examined whether there were changes in marital quality between 1980 and 2000, identified factors that might have accounted for these changes, and sought to determine their impact on the health and longevity of older persons. New questions included in Wave VI covered whether the respondent thought he/she had an organized lifestyle, alcohol and tobacco use, health problems, physical limitations, and mattering (the level of concern expressed for and received from spouse). Among the variables included in all six waves are age, sex, educational attainment, marital status and history, attitude toward divorce, number of children, religious affiliation, and income level.
 
Subject Term(s):aging, alcohol consumption, career goals, caregiver burden, divorce, dual career couples, expectations, family life, family work relationship, gender roles, health, life events, life plans, marital instability, marital satisfaction, marriage, mental health, occupational status, parent child relationship, personal finances, physical limitations, tobacco use, work attitudes
 
Geographic Coverage:United States
 
Universe:All intact marriages in the continental United States with partners between the ages of 18 and 55 in 1980 and living in households with telephones.
 
Data Type:survey data
 
Data Collection Notes:Because of additional cleaning of the data performed by the principal investigator, this data collection supersedes earlier versions (ICPSR 9199, ICPSR 9200, ICPSR 9747, and ICPSR 2163).
 
  In processing this collection, ICPSR did not change missing data codes defined by the principal investigators, at their request, and SAS and SPSS system missing data values were assigned numeric codes for each variable. Also, an unmarried case in Wave I was deleted at the principal investigators' request.
 
  The codebooks are provided by the principal investigator as Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
 

Methodology

Sample:National probability sample. The sample was selected using a random-digit dialing cluster technique. Data were weighted to adjust for underrepresentation in metropolitan areas.
 
Data Source:telephone interviews and mailback questionnaires
 

Access and Availability

Note:A list of the data formats available for this study can be found in the summary of holdings. Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.
 
Original ICPSR Release:2003-11-10
 
Dataset(s):
  • DS1: Data File
  • DS2: Codebook for Waves I, II, III: 1980, 1983, 1988
  • DS3: Codebook for Wave IV: 1992 and 1994
  • DS4: Codebook for Wave V: 1997
  • DS5: Codebook for Wave VI: 2000