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The California Families Project (CFP) is an ongoing longitudinal study of Mexican origin families in Northern California. This study uses community, school, family, and individual characteristics to examine developmental pathways that increase risk for and resilience to drug use in Mexican-origin youth. This study also examines the impact that economic disadvantage and cultural traditions have in Mexican-origin youth. The CFP includes a community-based sample of 674 families and children of Mexican origin living in Northern California, and includes annual assessments of parents and children. Participants with Mexican surnames were drawn at random from school rosters of students during the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school year. Data collection included multi-method assessments of a broad range of psychological, familial, scholastic, cultural, and neighborhood factors. Initiation of the research at age 10 was designed to assess the focal children before the onset of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug (ATOD) use, thus enabling the evaluation of how hypothesized risk and resilience mechanisms operate to exacerbate early onset during adolescence or help prevent its occurrence. This study includes a diversity of families that represent a wide range of incomes, education, family history, and family structures, including two-parent and single-parent families.

The accompanying data file consists of 674 family cases with each case representing a focal child and at least one parent (Two-parent: n=549, 82 percent; Single-parent: n=125, 18 percent). Of the 3,139 total variables, 839 pertain to the focal child, 1,376 correspond to the mother, and 908 items pertain to the father.

Please note: While the California Families Project is a longitudinal study, only the baseline data are currently available in this data collection.

The study was conducted during the spring and summer of 1971. The aim of the 1971 Detroit Area Study was to gather information on social change in the Detroit area by replicating items from nine earlier Detroit Area Studies that were conducted in 1953-1959, 1968, and 1969. The criteria used for selecting the question items were that they: (1) not be dated by wording or subject matter, (2) be relevant to some problem of current public concern or a continuing issue of sociological theory, and (3) be of the type that would be manageable in a long interview on diverse subjects. The questions chosen to be included in the 1971 Detroit Area Study examined issues such as values in marriage, ideal number of children, satisfaction of wives with marriage, decision-making and division of labor within a marriage, attitudes toward women and work, child-rearing, social participation, religious participation and beliefs, moral and job values, political orientation and participation, evaluation of various institutions, and racial attitudes. In addition to the items replicated from the previous studies, respondents' attitudes toward the United States sending troops to Vietnam were explored. Background variables established respondents' age, sex, race, educational level, marital status, occupation, class identification, and relationship to head of household. Demographic information was also collected on the respondent's spouse and parents.

This Detroit Area Study was primarily concerned with investigating the process of mate choice over time and the impact of mate choice experiences on marital success. To this end, the survey questioned ever-married women about their dating and mate choice history, marital history, and satisfaction with and problems in existing marriages. Respondents were questioned about the steady boyfriends they had before their first marriage and whether they seriously considered marrying another man before they married their first husband. Women who answered in the affirmative to the latter were queried about the race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic characteristics of the man they had most seriously considered marrying before marrying their first husband, how long they went out together, and how the relationship broke off. Questions on the respondent's first marriage covered such things as how and where the respondent first met her husband, her age when they met, how long they were engaged, whether or not they lived together before marrying, whether she had doubts or sought advice about the decision to marry before the wedding, and whether her parents or her husband's parents approved or disapproved of the marriage. Women were also questioned about their career expectations before their first marriage, the religion and socioeconomic status of their first husband, and the date, place, and size of the wedding celebration as well as living arrangements in the first six months of marriage. Questions on the current or most recent marriage covered topics such as the marital division of labor, child-rearing practices and values, friendships shared with the husband, and satisfaction and and interaction with the husband, including the degree of communication, affection shown, disagreements, and physical abuse. Additional information gathered by the survey includes number children ever born, number of stepchildren and adoptions, and the age, race, ethnicity, education, religion, religiosity, employment status, occupation, and early family background of the respondent.

The purpose of the Early Years of Marriage (EYM) Project was to determine ways in which the early development of marriage for Black couples and White couples affect the mental and physical health of spouses, marital stability, long-term marital outcomes, patterns of family life and, for those who divorce, individual adjustment to family disruption. The EYM Project began in 1986 with 373 newlywed couples--174 White couples and 199 Black couples. The marriages were all intra-racial and it was the first marriage for both spouses.

Year 1 interviews, which queried the couples on various aspects of married life, began after four to nine months into the marriage. Very few respondents who originally participated in Year 1 of the study refused to participate in subsequent phases of the study. In 1986 (Year 1) and 1988 (Year 3) spouses were interviewed in their homes separately and together, with the interviews conducted by interviewers of the same race. In 1987 (Year 2) and 1989 (Year 4) shorter individual telephone interviews were conducted.

In all four years, respondents were queried on a wide variety of topics such as feelings and perceptions of their own family, spouse, in-laws, and their spouse's friends, family planning, how many children they should have, how the children should be reared, childcare, and household roles and responsibilities. A series of questions was asked about reasons for getting married, how satisfying married life was, what, if any, were the special pleasures and good feelings that came from being married, how often arguments and disagreements occurred, main reasons for arguments, and how they were eventually resolved. A series of questions were also asked regarding the mental and physical health of the spouse, job satisfaction, job security, and how the job affected the family. In Year 2 and Year 4 interviews (Parts 2-4), a series of questions regarding separation and divorce were also asked.

Demographic variables include race, gender, age, level of education, occupation, income, and religious preference.

Formerly titled Marital Instability Over the Life Course (MIOLC -- ICPSR 3812), the Work and Family Life Study (WFLS) is a follow-up to the MIOLC. The MIOLC examined the causes of marital instability throughout the life course, and contains 6 waves of data collected between 1980 and 2000, which were gathered from married respondents who were between the ages of 19 and 55.

The Work and Family Life Study provides data for use in assessing: changes in marital quality between 1980 and 2000; the effects of family-of-origin characteristics and marital history on the physical and psychological health of respondents; and evaluating sample attrition, factors which lead to attrition, and attrition bias.

The WFLS collected new cross-sectional information (Part 2 -- Public Use Cross Section, N = 2,189) on married people 55 years of age and younger, using the same sampling procedures and interview questions that were used in the 1980 wave of the MIOLC. The Work and Family Life Study's Public Use Cross Section is the latest addition to the data collections. This new Public Use Cross Section studies the effects of wives' participation in the labor force on marriage and marital instability.

Also provided in this collection are the Public Use All Waves (Part 1, N = 2,034) and the Public Use Panel Wave 6 (Part 3, N = 1,031). The Public Use All Waves contains information from Waves I through VI, which were collected in 1980, 1983, 1987, 1992-1994, 1997, and 2000. 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. The Public Use Panel Wave 6 contains data on persons who only responded to wave 6 of the study.

Unique to this data collection, the Public Use Comparison file (Part 4, N = 11,741) contains information on respondents who would have been between the ages of 19 and 55 in 1980, married, and living with their spouse. These data evaluate potential bias from sample attrition in the panel study. The Comparison Sample is a special purpose sample and does not generalize to a normally defined population of ever married persons.