In January 2007, each student in FSoS 5014, Introduction to Quantitative Family Research Methods, was asked to summarize and evaluate information about a secondary data set used in the family field. The following summary was prepared by Gregg Schacher.
Survey of Program Dynamics
Study Purpose: To collect data which will demonstrate the degree to which welfare reform initiatives have been successful. This is done through collecting data on the economic, income, family circumstances and social characteristics of a nationally representative sample over a ten year period (1992-2002). Goals include providing information on welfare program participation and its long-term impact (on recipients and their families) and monitoring potential long-term changes that result from implementing welfare reform.
Content: Core questions inquired about labor force participation, sources / amounts of income and program participation. In order to satisfy programmatic needs of other federal agencies each wave collected additional information that may not have been collected again. Examples include areas such as: child care arrangements, child support, health care, housing costs, marital satisfaction, parental depression, and adolescent questions about family conflict, vocational goals, independence, substance abuse, etc.
Principal investigators: A team of researchers from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sources of data: Information was collected in the 1992 and 1993 panels of the SIPP (Survey of Income and Program Participation); information collected in 1997 used a modified version of the March CPS; and information collected from 1998 to 2002 used the SPD instrument.
Waves of data collection:
1992-1993 (these were survey data included in the first / last waves of the 1992/1993 SIPP panels)
1997 “Bridge� Survey
1998-2002 SPD Surveys
Participants (type and numbers) from whom data were directly collected:
1992/1993 - 35,291 Households (interviewed through SIPP panels)
The SIPP sample consisted of an annual selection of households (a panel) who were a nationally representative sample. All of the adults in those households were interviewed once every four months (this constituted a wave).
1997 Bridge SPD - 30,125 Households
The 1997 SPD bridged the gap in data between the close of the SIPP panels and the start of the SPD by recontacting the interviewed sample people from the 1992 and 1993 SIPP panels. The sample size for the SPD Bridge Survey was 34,609 households of whom 30,125 were interviewed.
1998 SPD - 16,395 Households (these were subsamples of the 1997 Bridge Survey)
1999 SPD - 16,659 Households (consisted of all eligible households from the 1998 SPD Survey)
2000 SPD - 18,716 Households (eligible household from 1999 and a subsample from those noninterviewed households from the 1997 sample)
2001 SPD - 22,340 (from eligible households from all SPD Surveys, a subsample from 1997 and noninterviewed households from 1992 & 1993)
Data collection: Most data were collected with control cards and questionnaires, some through interviews (although adolescents between the ages of 12-17 were interviewed directly and questions were administered by audio-cassette with the adolescent filling in an answer booklet).
Your assessment of strengths and weaknesses of the data set:
Some of these data are longitudinal, collected at three different time points over the course of ten years. The strength for those data is the collection of information over time. Some of the data were not collected at each wave and so there is inconsistency might present challenges to a researcher hoping to see longitudinal outcomes for those data. The types of questions and content areas seem to stress observable behaviors, particularly in relation to resources. This is both a strength and a weakness, depending on the focus of your research. For subjective relationship perceptions there were question about marital satisfaction and parent depression which was in contrast to the behavioral focus on other questions. Attrition rates were another weakness. In 1992/93 there were 35,291 households interviewed (73.4% of possible households) and in 2002 there were 12,496 households interviewed (53% of possible households).
Accessibility of data to the research community:
It appears that much of the data is available for download. However, there are indications that data can be purchased on CD which has the advantage of organizing some of the data categorically and comes with explicit documentation.
My assessment of how useful this data set would be for family research:
It would be very valuable when examining the economic, emotional, community-support, individual-functioning, and relationship impacts of a variety of assistance programs. Although the core questions focus on sources of income and employment in relationship to services received, there is also a host of questions related to such areas as child care arrangements, children’s educational progress, family structure, adolescent behaviors and outcomes, etc.
Web site: http://www.bls.census.gov/spd/
An overview, status reports, design information, survey content, data editing & imputation, information on searches, sampling & weighting info., how to use and link to files, publication generated by SPD data, quality profile, SPD news, user notes, user’s guide and tools to access SPD data. There is a bibliography of SPD-related research.
How does one gain access to the data:
The website offers a free software download called “DataFerrett� which allows users to create a data editing table. It appears that variables put into this table can be downloaded into a variety of different file formats, including SPSS. CD’s with Microdata files can be purchased, as well.