Locate in Document:
Project
1 - Conducting a National Survey
of Midlife Development
Project 2
- Ethnic and Racial Minorities in Urban Areas
Project 3
- Collaborative Longitudinal Studies
Survey
Content and Availability
Research Project
1
CONDUCTING A NATIONAL SURVEY OF MIDLIFE DEVELOPMENT
IN THE UNITED STATES
(MIDUS)
This is the main research activity of the Network. This survey was administered
as part of the collaborative interdisciplinary investigation of patterns,
predictors, and consequences of midlife development in the areas of physical
health, psychological well being, and social responsibility. This survey
is the
National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS)
(Technical Report on the Methodology
of the MIDUS Survey)
The questions in the survey were selected from prior instruments
or developed by members of MIDMAC over a period of several years. This
work included the design and administration of several small national pilot
surveys in selected MIDMAC topical areas. The resulting survey instrument
is named
The Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI)
(Survey Content and Availability)
A.) Sampling
The MIDUS survey was administered to a nationally representative
sample of 7,189 non-institutionalized, English-speaking adults. There was
an oversampling of older respondents and men to guarantee a good distribution
on the cross-classification of age and gender. All respondents are in the
age range 25-74. Respondents were recruited by telephone to participate
in the survey. The respondents were administered a 30-minute telephone
interview, and then a two-part self-administered questionnaire was mailed
to them.
The Final Samples:
1. General Population Sample:
| Respondents completed both telephone survey and self-administered
questionnaire |
3,032
|
|
| Respondents completed the telephone survey only |
453
|
|
| Sub-Total |
|
3,485
|
2. Oversamples in five metropolitan areas:
| Atlanta |
50
|
|
| Boston |
556
|
|
| Chicago |
50
|
|
| Phoenix |
50
|
|
| San Francisco |
51
|
|
| Sub-Total |
|
757
|
3. Siblings of the General Population Respondents
529 people were randomly selected from those
of the general population respondents who reported that they had one or
more siblings. Using only siblings within a family that had the same
biological mother and father, a group of 951 siblings was identified. (Often
more than one sibling in a family was included.) The combined groups of
951 and 529 yielded 1,614 sibling pairs. The distribution is as follows:
Families
Interviewed |
Sibs
|
Pairs
|
Individuals
|
| 272 |
2 |
272 |
544 |
| 146 |
3 |
438 |
438 |
| 75 |
4 |
450 |
300 |
| 22 |
5 |
220 |
110 |
| 10 |
6 |
150 |
60 |
| 4 |
7 |
84 |
28 |
| Total |
|
|
|
| 529 |
- |
1,614 |
1,480 |
The 1,614 pairs of siblings consist of the following
gender pairs:
| Gender |
Pairs |
| Male-Male |
280 |
| Female-Female |
447 |
| Male-Female |
685 |
| Sub-Total |
1,412 |
| Male-Unknown |
52 |
| Female-Unknown |
95 |
| Unknown-Unknown |
55 |
| Sub-Total |
202 |
| Total |
1,614 |
The age distribution of the 1,480 individual
siblings is as follows:
| 25-34 |
203 |
| 35-44 |
341 |
| 45-54 |
350 |
| 55-64 |
288 |
| 65-74 |
208 |
| Sub-Total |
1,390 |
Outliers from calculated age (phone
date - birth date):
| 24 |
1 |
| 75 |
3 |
| Missing |
86 |
| Sub-Total |
90 |
4. Twins Pairs
998 twin pairs (1,996 twin individuals) were
recruited as described below. On occasion there was more than one twin
pair per family. The distribution is as follows:
Families
Interviewed |
Twin
Pairs |
Individuals |
| 933 |
1 |
1,866 |
| 28 |
2 |
112 |
| 3 |
3 |
18 |
| Total |
|
|
| 964 |
- |
1,996 |
The age distribution is known for 1,914
of the 1996 twin individuals.
| 25-34 |
422 |
| 35-44 |
579 |
| 45-54 |
492 |
| 55-64 |
260 |
| 65-74 |
161 |
| Sub-Total |
1,914 |
The general population sample and the metropolitan
oversample were recruited by random digit dialing. Siblings of the general
population respondents were recruited with the cooperation of the respondents,
who were asked to provide interviewers with contact information and to
communicate with their sibs about participation prior to the time a recruiter
makes a contact attempt. Twin-pairs were recruited in a more complex two-part
sampling design. The first part of the twin sample design involved screening
a representative national sample of approximately 50,000 households for
the presence of a twin. This was done as part of ongoing national omnibus
surveys. The second part of the twin sample design involved student recruiters
from the University of Michigan contacting the twin households and attempting
to recruit twins to participate in the survey. Cooperating twins were asked
to provide contact information for their co-twins, who were also recruited
by the students.
B.) Data Collection
MIDUS data collection includes four phases:
1. The 7,189 respondents were administered a 30-minute telephone
interview.
2. A two-part self-administered questionnaire was mailed to respondents.
The questionnaire takes about an hour and a half to complete. A reminder
postcard and a remailing of a second copy of the questionnaire was sent
to all respondents who failed to return the initial mailing. Those who
failed to return the second copy of the questionnaire were recontacted
by telephone and encouraged to do so. A third copy of the questionnaire
was mailed to respondents who, in the course of the persuasion call, reported
that they misplaced both copies of the questionnaire that were mailed to
them or reported that the copies never arrived.
3. The twin pairs and non-twin sib pairs were asked to supply DNA
samples from inside cheek scrapings for purposes of genotyping. Two cytology
brush packages were included in each self-administered questionnaire mailing.
Respondents used the brushes to gently scrape the inside of their cheeks
for 30 seconds.
4. Random subsamples of respondents were recruited into five in-depth
investigations of selected topics:
The first is a longitudinal,
laboratory-based study of management strategies used to cope with midlife
stressful experiences. This study is underway in Boston, and makes use
of 302 of the 556 Boston oversample respondents in the general population
sample.
The second study is an
intensive, three hour investigation of social responsibility. This study
employed face-to-face in-depth interviews with 94 MIDUS subjects selected
from the oversamples in the five metropolitan areas. The interviews are
completed and are being analyzed. This study is in collaboration with Anne
Colby of the Henry A. Murray Research Center, Radcliffe College, and William
Damon, Center for the Study of Human Development, Brown University.In the third, a total of
1,483 subjects from the MIDUS survey participated in the National Study
of Daily Experiences (NSDE). The NSDE sample is comprised of 1,031 randomly
selected respondents from the main general population survey and 452 MIDUS
twins. Twins were selected if twin pairs had high self-reported certainty
of zygosity. The twin subsample includes approximately 216 same sex-twin
pairs (116 MZ and 110 DZ). Respondents in the NSDE completed short telephone
interviews about their daily experiences on each of eight consecutive evenings.
On the final evening of interviewing, respondents also answered several
questions about their previous week. Data collection spanned an entire
year (March 1996 -March 1997) and consisted of 40 separate "flights" of
interviews with each flight representing the eight-day sequence of interviews
from approximately 38 respondents. Of the 1,843 MIDUS respondents with
whom contact was attempted, 1,484 agreed to participate, yielding a response
rate of 81%. Respondents completed an average of 7 of the 8 interviews
resulting in a total of 10,389 daily interviews.
The fourth investigation
held focused interviews of a subsample of 750 respondents from the larger
sample, exploring the prevalence of various kinds of events among those
reporting intense midlife psychological experiences, including experiences
that have been referred to as "midlife crises," and looking for clues to
possible predictors and consequences of such events. This subsample will
be selected by reinterviewing respondents who reported in the core interview
that they experienced a midlife crisis or some other intense midlife psychological
experience, and by interviewing a matched subsample of controls who reported
no such experiences.
The fifth in-depth study
was launched during 1996. Some 83 respondents selected from the subsample
of 1,300 respondents in the daily diary study described above will be invited
to participate. This study is of the ways in which personal and social
well-being are experienced and lived. The method is an in-depth psychological
interview, covering four of five hours, on the meaning of midlife to the
interviewee and the subjective changes in selfhood that have been experienced.
Field Procedures
The Response Rate
Weighting the MIDUS Data
Project 2
Project 3
Survey
Content
Research
Project 2
ETHNIC AND RACIAL MINORITIES
IN URBAN AREAS
A set of studies was designed to assure representation of minorities
who might be reached only in small numbers by the national probability
sample surveys. These studies use home interviews with quota samples of
ethnic/racial minorities in Chicago and New York City, and with subjects
of an ongoing longitudinal research program in Baltimore. All subjects
in these studies have taken a modified version of the MIDI, which includes
about 65% of the instrument used in the national surveys. It is possible
to do many identical analyses for the national sample and for the minority
subjects.
In Chicago the subjects are 261 Mexican Americans and 196 Puerto
Ricans (457 total). In New York City the subjects are 284 Dominicans, 284
Puerto Ricans, and 338 African-Americans (906 total). In Baltimore the
subjects are 250+/- midlife women, primarily African-American, who have
been followed in a longitudinal study since adolescence.
Among the data being collected in these studies are detailed descriptions
of the subject's home community, family and kinship membership, and stress
in the workplace. In addition, in New York City there is an ethnographic
follow up involving in depth interviews with 100 cases drawn from the New
York City subjects, and intensive studies of their neighborhoods.
Project 1
Project 3
Survey
Content
Research
Project 3
COLLABORATIVE LONGITUDINAL STUDIES
Productive collaboration continues with three major longitudinal
studies: Whitehall II; the National Survey of Families and Households;
and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. During 1995 research papers were
written based on analyses of data in one or more of these longitudinal
studies combined with similar data in the Network's six large pilot studies.
Similar multi-study analyses using the MIDUS survey data when available
have been planned for some time, and now that the data are in hand these
analyses are underway. These include a study of mastery and control in
both the MIDUS and Whitehall II data, and a study of psychological well-being
in both the MIDUS data and NSFH data, and a study of social class and health
combining data from all four studies.
A collaboration with CHEWE (Coronary Heart Disease in Eastern and
Western Europe) is a modest venture by the Network, in which the next wave
of data-gathering in three very large longitudinal studies of heart disease
will include questions taken from the MIDI on psychological well being,
and on psychological characteristics and health practices.
A new collaboration was established with the well-known Nurses Health
Study at Harvard Medical School. This collaboration includes a special
survey of a subgroup of subjects who have experienced some specific illnesses
during the prior year, and also the inclusion of a number of questions
from the MIDI in the next main data gathering wave in the Nurses Study.
Project 1
Project 2
Survey
Content
Survey Content and Availability
A. Survey Content
The Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI) used in the main survey
is available
for downloading:
MIDI Questionnaires
B. Data Availability
The MIDUS Main, Twin, and Sibling survey data have been deposited
at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
and are now available. ICPSR will also make data from the six satellite
studies available as soon as they are deposited by Network members and
the archiving work is completed. This activity will continue into
the spring of 2001.
Data files can be found at ICPSR's "Data Access & Analysis" page located at:
Searching
for "MIDUS" or "Midlife" will bring up data collections deposited by the
Network (as shown below).
3596 |
Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS): Boston Study of Management Processes, 1995-1997
Lachman, Margie E.
description
| downloads
|
|
2004-09-02
|
|
2856 |
Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS): Survey of Minority Groups [Chicago and New York City], 1995-1996
Hughes, Diane L., Shweder, Richard A.
description
| downloads
|
|
2004-06-23
|
|
2760 |
National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), 1995-1996
Brim, Orville G., Paul B. Baltes, Larry L. Bumpass,
Paul D. Cleary, David L. Featherman, William R. Hazzard, Ronald
C. Kessler, Margie E. Lachman, Hazel Rose Markus, ...
description
| downloads
|
|
