Change and Continuity in Midlife: A 10-Year Panel Study of Values, Leisure, Life Structure, and Life Events, United States and Canada, 1987-1996 (ICPSR 38424)

Version Date: Sep 2, 2025

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Principal Investigator(s):
Gaylene Carpenter, University of Oregon; Jean Stockard, University of Oregon

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38424.v2

Version V2 ()

  • V2 [2025-09-02]
  • V1 [2022-06-28] unpublished
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Summary

This study was a 10-year panel study of middle-aged men and women. Through yearly surveys it examined change and continuity of individuals' values, perceptions of leisure, and life structure and the association of these perceptions with life experiences.

Citation

Carpenter, Gaylene, and Stockard, Jean. Change and Continuity in Midlife: A 10-Year Panel Study of Values, Leisure, Life Structure, and Life Events, United States and Canada, 1987-1996. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-09-02. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38424.v2

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Subject Terms

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1987-01-01 -- 1996-12-31 (Fall 1987 to Fall 1996)

Date of Collection

1987-01-01 -- 1996-12-31 (Fall 1987, Fall 1988, Fall 1989, Fall 1990, Fall 1991, Fall 1992, Fall 1993, Fall 1994, Fall 1995, Fall 1996)

Data Collection Notes

  1. For additional information on the Change and Continuity in Midlife study, please visit the ASOLDA website.
  2. NOTE: The most extensive analyses and methodological details are in Carpenter and Stockard (2020): A Decade of Change and Continuity in Midlife. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
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Study Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the change and continuity of individuals' values, perceptions of leisure, and life structure and the association of these perceptions with life experiences.

Study Design

Respondents represented three different generations within the broad span of years considered part of middle age: those born shortly before or during the Great Depression and in the later years of middle age (aged 47 to 60) at the start of the study, those born shortly before or during World War II; and those born in the early years of the post-World War II baby boom. Twenty-two of the participants were in committed relationships with another person in the study, and 6 of these 11 relationships involved same-sex partnerships.

Sample

Convenience sample, solicited for long-term participation.

Time Method

Longitudinal

Universe

Middle-aged adults from the United States and Canada

Unit(s) of Observation

Individual

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables

Respondents were asked about how they feel about leisure, leisure activities, how much they spend in leisure, what they value in life, and about life experiences which had impacted their outlook on life whether positively or negatively.

Response Rates

Over the 10 years the yearly response rate was over 85 percent. Sixty-eight of the 84 respondents completed a survey each year.

Presence of Common Scales

Life values were measured with:

  • Kahle's (1983) List of Values

Leisure views were measured with:

  • Crandall and Slivken's (1980) Leisure Attitude Scale
  • Ellis and Witt's (1984) Measure of Perceived Freedom in Leisure Scale
  • Carpenter's (1989) Valuing Leisure Scale

Participants' Assessment of Life Structure were measured with:

  • Carpenter's (1988) measure derived from the work of Levinson, et. al. (1978).

Important life events were measured with:

  • Life Experiences Survey (Sarason, et al., 1978) and included an item to measure perceived control of life events.
  • Carpenter, G. (1997). A longitudinal investigation of mid-life men who hold leisure in higher regard than work. Society and Leisure, 20(1), pp. 189-211.
  • Carpenter, G. (1988). The relationship between valuing leisure and change during middle adulthood. In D. Gill (Ed.), Abstracts of Research Papers, Reston, VA: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, p. 192.
  • Carpenter, G. (1989). Life change during middle adulthood and valuing leisure. World Leisure and Recreation. 31(1), pp. 29-31.
  • Carpenter, G. and Stockard, J. (2020). A decade of change and continuity in midlife.Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Crandall, R. & Slivken, K. (1980). Leisure attitudes and their measurement. In S. E. Iso-Ahola (Ed.), Social psychological perspectives on leisure and recreation (pp. 261-284). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
  • Ellis, G. D. & Witt, P. A. (1984). The measurement of perceived freedom in leisure.Journal of Leisure Research16, pp. 110-123.
  • Kahle, L. R. (1983). (Ed.). Social values and social change: Adaptation to life in America.NY: Praeger.
  • Levinson, D. J. (1978). The seasons of a man's life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  • Sarason, I., Johnson, J., & Siegel, J. (1978). Assessing the impact of life changes: Development of the life experiences survey. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46, pp. 932-946.

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Original Release Date

2022-06-28

Version History

2025-09-02 Added full data suite and added all documentation as pdfs.

2022-06-28 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Notes