Sociology 699F: Gender & Social Change

Sociology 699F Data Files

Still under construction: please come back

I anticipate that most students will use one of a handful of frequently-used data sets that will be ready for the course. But often students have already worked with some microdata and may want to extend those analyses to a multilevel framework. If geocodes are available with those data, we may be able to link them to available area based data. If you anticipate such a possibility, we need to discuss this as soon as possible.

I will also provide a handful of research questions for which these data can provide appropriate analyses. We will review these suggested paper topics at the first meeting.

Widely used data suitable for studying macro level variation in gender stratification systems include:

• metropolitan areas (or for some issues, states) within the United States using:
  • Census PUMS (Public Use Microdata Samples): The main advantage of the PUMS is the enormous number of cases available. This makes our estimates of within area relationships more reliable than for usual surveys where the sample sizes are much smaller. The greater reliability of those within-area estimates in the pUMS increases the chances of detecting theoretically meaningful variations in those relationships across areas. The disadvantage of the PUMS is that only the most basic information is available in the PUMS: education, work status, occupation, income, current marital status and household composition, immigration status, and a few other standard background items. Projects working with the PUMS may need to use a unix machine to take advantage of its speed and storage capacity.
  • NLSY (National Longitudinal Survey of Youth). These data provide enormous (sometimes overwhelming) data on work histories of a sample of youth surveyed from late adolescence in 1979 through the present. The data are especially useful for studying how changes in independent variables can affect changes in dependent variables. Special permission is necessary to use the geocodes. Projects working with these data will have to seek those permissions as soon as possible.
  • GSS (General Social Survey). A familiar data set for many sociologists. It is especially useful for attitudinal and behavioral data. We have ready access to the geocodes, but need to inform the PIs of additional users.

• nations within the world;
• DHS (Demographic and Health Surveys). These fairly standard surveys from a wide range of developing countries, include excellent data on education, health, anthropometry, and fertility. They are especially useful for studying gender differences among children. The countries can be linked to a wide variety of World Bank and UN data to provide multilevel analyses.
• ISSP (International Social Science Program). These data resemble the General Social Survey in many features but have now been extended to a broad sample of (mostly developed) countries. Each year focuses on a special theme, which is then repeated after several years. Gender inequalities have been a theme for the 1988, 1994, and 2002 rounds (although it is not clear whether the 2002 is fully available yet). The 1994 survey included 24 countries.
Questions were asked on gender ideology, abortion attitudes, work history, the division of household labor, sexual harassment, and other topics. See ISSP web page for 1994
• districts within India
:

India provides an especially useful environment in which to study gender inequality because of the substantial variation across the country and the good area level data describing districts within India. Micro-level data that include geocodes are HDPI (Human Development Profile for India) which has a wide range of economic and health indicators. The NSS (National Sample Surveys) from the Government of India also provide geocodes at a slightly more aggregated level than the distict. There may even be a possibility of using geocodes from the India equivalent of the DHS, the NFHS (the National Family Health Survey), but we would have to move quickly on this if you are interested

• others
There are other possibilities both for areas within the U.S., countries across the world, and areas within specific countries other than the U.S. or India. But there may be less macro data available or the micro data may not be convenient, so if you are thinking of some other project, we should talk soon.