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Editor:
Tonya Allen
allen@pop.psu.edu
PRInformation
Spring 2003
New External Research Funding
Aging and the Reliability of Survey Data
Dr. Duane F. Alwin, professor of sociology and demography, with co-investigators at the University of Michigan, received funding from NIA for three years for a project which will investigate the relationship of age to measurement errors in survey-administered self-report questionnaires. The overall aims of the project are to better understand the nature of survey measurement errors and the processes by which they are generated, and to make practical recommendations about the characteristics of survey questions that will improve the quality of data in surveys of the aging population.
American Religion Data Archive (ARDA)
Dr. Roger Finke, professor of sociology and religious studies, received funding for three years from the Lilly Endowment in support of the American Religion Data Archive (ARDA), an Internet-based data archive that stores and distributes quantitative data sets from the leading studies on American religion.
Changing Income Inequality in a Period of Economic Expansion, 1990 to 2000
Dr. Diane K. McLaughlin, associate professor of rural sociology and demography, received funding from USDA for two years for a project to investigate whether the factors that affected change in household income inequality across counties from 1980 to 1990 will have the same influence during a period of economic expansion (1990 to 2000). Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census of Population and Housing, the study will examine how industrial restructuring, changes in family structure, and changes in labor supply in U.S. counties have influenced changes in household income inequality in counties from 1990 to 2000.
Comparative Analysis of Structural Covariates of Female and Male Offending Rates (1970-2000)
Dr. Darrell Steffensmeier, professor of sociology and crime, law and justice, with co-investigator Jennifer Schwartz, received funding from the National Institute of Justice for one year to examine how changes in the structural features of communities, particularly in the economic and family institutions, drive female and male rates of violent crime.
Latent Growth Curve Models of Cognitive Aging
Dr. Duane F. Alwin, professor of sociology and demography, and Dr. Linda A. Wray, assistant professor of biobehavioral health, received funding from NIA for one year to apply strategies of latent growth curve (LGC) modeling within a structural equation framework to examine intra-individual change in trajectories of cognitive performance in old age and its correlates, particularly age, education, health, and sensory functioning.
Welfare Reform and Migration
Dr. Gordon De Jong, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography, and Dr. Deborah Graefe, research associate of the Population Research Institute, have received funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to perform a three-year study of welfare reform and its relation to migration. The project will analyze how poor families in the U.S. relocate from state to state because of the increased inequalities in welfare benefits and restrictions between states resulting from the 1996 welfare reform legislation. The study will also examine cross-labor-market migration within states in terms of within-state change in welfare rules over time.
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