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The main focus of this data collection was women's attitudes toward family and family size. The women interviewed for this study answered questions on past pregnancies and described their attitudes toward large and small families, their reasons for having children, and the nature of their own patterns of family growth. Extensive family background information was also collected, including data on occupation of respondent and husband, age of respondent and husband, education of respondent and husband and their parents, family income, types of savings, and housing information.

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 study of 438 women aged 18-65 in the Detroit metropolitan area in 1974 provides information on their participation in the labor force. Data are provided on the job histories of respondents, up to 14 previous occupations in order to assess the nature of work, length of stay on the job, and the status of public or private employment. Respondents were asked questions about the various jobs they had held, such as their feelings toward their jobs, their reasons for working, job titles held, membership in labor unions, health conditions that might have affected their work, reasons for leaving their jobs, and the geographic location of their workplace, as well as their feelings of job security and job satisfaction. Other questions probed respondents' feelings about equal job opportunities for men and women, equal privileges for women and men, the removal of the glass ceiling for women in America's corporate and political life, the implications for the marriage if a wife earned more than her husband, career-oriented wives, husbands' share of household chores, and working mothers. Additional items explored respondents' opinions of government's efforts to eliminate sexual and racial discrimination, and the idea of changes in divorce laws to make divorce easier or harder to obtain. Demographic variables specify age, sex, education, marital status, income, relationship to head of household, household composition, nationality, political party affiliation, and social class identification. Also provided is demographic information on family members.

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.

This collection includes screener data collected as part of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), which is a multi-site longitudinal, epidemiologic study which began in 1994 and was designed to examine the health of women during their middle years. The study examines the physical, biological, psychological, and social changes during this transitional period. The goal of SWAN's research is to help scientists, health care providers, and women learn how mid-life experiences affect health and quality of life during aging. This data includes questions about doctor visits, medical conditions, medications, treatments, medical procedures, relationships, smoking, and menopause related information such as age at pre-, peri- and post-menopause, self-attitudes, feelings, and common physical problems associated with menopause. Also included in the data are background characteristics (age, race, occupation, education, marital status, and family size).

The SWAN study is co-sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health. The screener dataset contains information from 16,142 women who responded to the SWAN cross-sectional screening interview during the period from 11/1/1995 through 12/1/1997 from the 7 clinical sites participating in the SWAN longitudinal study. The sites include Boston, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Oakland and Los Angeles, California, Detroit, Michigan, Newark, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois. SWAN participants represent five racial/ethnic groups and a variety of backgrounds and cultures.

The Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area Drug Study (DC*MADS) was conducted in 1991, and included special analyses of homeless and transient delivering live births in the DC hospitals. DC*MADS was undertaken to assess the full extent of the drug problem in one metropolitan area. The study was comprised of 16 separate studies that focused on different sub-groups, many of which are typically not included or are underrepresented in household surveys.

The DC*MADS: Drug Use Among Women Delivering Livebirths in DC Hospitals was designed to examine the nature and extent of drug use among women delivering live births in eight Washington, DC, hospitals participating in the study. Data from the questionnaires include prenatal care, health problems during pregnancy, pregnancy drug use history, needle use, polysubstance use, patterns of use, respondent's general experiences with drug use, including perceptions of the risks and consequences of use, occurrence of psychological and emotional problems, income and insurance coverage, treatment experiences, and maternal and infant outcomes. Medical records were abstracted from the women and their infants to document medical problems. Abstracted data on the mothers included demographics, discharge diagnoses, disposition at discharge, and results of urine screens. Abstracted data on infants included delivery information, status at discharge, discharge diagnoses/procedures, and first urine toxicology screen results.

The Women's Employment Study, or "WES" combined the insights of poverty researchers, epidemiologists, and social workers by analyzing the ways in which a broad range of labor market, mental health, physical health, and family problems affect a welfare recipient's ability to obtain and retain employment over time.

WES initially began in the Fall of 1997, and five waves of the survey were completed by early 2004, with a high proportion of the original panel sample retained throughout the study.

The unique aspects of WES rest largely with the broad range of barriers it measures, and the longitudinal nature of the study that allows researchers to look at employment and welfare experiences over time.