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[Conference Home] [Conference Registration] [Paper Submission] [Hotel Information] [Dates & Deadlines] [Directions] [Evaluation]
Day 1 | |
8:00-8:30 |
Registration |
8:30-9:00 |
Welcome and Highlights of Counting Couples Workshop |
Presenters: |
Sandy Hofferth, University of Maryland at College Park Lynne Casper, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, U.S. DHHS |
Session 1, 9:00-10:30: |
Measuring Marriage and Cohabitation |
Organizer: |
Kathleen Mullan Harris, University of North Carolina |
Presenters: |
Studying Marital
Interaction and Commitment With Survey Data Measuring and Modeling Cohabitation: New Perspectives
from Qualitative Data Jean Knab and Sara McLanahan, Princeton University Measuring Male Fertility in Add Health |
Discussant: |
Linda Waite, University of Chicago |
This session will draw upon current studies that collect information on relationships to explore the ways in cohabitation is measured and to contrast relationship quality and commitment in cohabiting and marital relationships. Paul Amato will present data on commitment in marital relationships; Wendy Manning and Pamela Smock will present results from their on-going qualitative studies of cohabiting relationships; Jean Knab and Sara McLanahan will explore ways to measure cohabitation in The Fragile Families Study and its implications for other relationship measures, such as quality; and Michael Pollard and Kathleen Mullan Harris will explore measurement of cohabiting relationships in Add Health and contrast the quality of relationships between marital and cohabiting relationships. Whenever possible, subgroup differences by age, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status will be presented. Linda Waite will discuss the findings presented in light of their contribution to measurement strategies and research knowledge. Data sets represented in this session represent the most recent studies in the field that examine marriage and cohabitation, whose designs were influenced by the first Counting Couples Conference in 2001. |
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Session 2, 10:45-12:15: |
Measuring the Quality of Couple Relationships: The State of the Art and Implications for Evaluating Interventions |
Organizer: |
Naomi Goldstein, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. DHHS |
Presenters: |
Healthy Marriages and Healthy Relationships: Conceptualization and
Measurement
Conceptualizing and Measuring a Construct of Marital
Virtues Assessing Marital and Couple Relationships: Beyond Form
and Toward a Deeper Knowledge of Function |
Discussant: |
Matthew Stagner, The Urban Institute |
The session will discuss how measures of relationship quality are or can be designed to capture the effects of interventions; to be applicable across a range of relationship types; to be applicable across diverse populations; and to capture aspects of relationships that are related to child well-being. Kristin Moore and colleagues from Child Trends will present a summary of current practice and recommendations for the conceptualization and measurement of healthy marriage and couple relationships, based on a review of publications, measures, and memos solicited from researchers and practitioners representing a range of disciplines and familiarity with diverse populations, including minority populations, prison populations, and cohabiting couples, as well as married couples. Alan Hawkins and Scott Stanley will describe the concepts and measures they have developed and used in evaluating interventions to promote healthy marriage, and discuss areas for further development. Matt Stagner will provide reactions to the presentations, bringing to bear information gathered from a systematic review of experimental interventions to promote healthy marriage. |
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Session 3, 1:30-3:00: |
Measuring Men's Fertility |
Organizer: |
Freya Sonenstein, Johns Hopkins University |
Presenters: |
Male Relationship and Fertility Data in the NLSY79
Freya Sonenstein, Johns Hopkins University Qualitative Insights for Studying Male Fertility:
Assessing the Procreative Man
Measuring Male Fertility in Add Health |
Discussant: |
Christine Bachrach, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, U.S. DHHS |
This session will examine why it is important to measure men's fertility and how well current surveys collect information about this experience. Topics to be addressed include: the measures used, their reliability and validity, and differences in results obtained across surveys by age, race/ethnicity, education and income. The data sets to be examined are Add Health, NLSY (1979 and 1997) by Frank Mott, NSAM by Freya Sonenstein, and NSM by Koray Tanfer. Insights about measurement drawn from qualitative work will also be discussed by William Marsiglio. |
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3:00-3:15 |
Coffee Break Sponsored by Child Trends and MPRC |
Session 4, 3:15-4:45: |
Measuring Divorce and Separation |
Organizer: |
Gary Sandefur, University of Wisconsin- Madison |
Presenters: |
Measuring Divorce and Separation:
Issues, and Comparability of Estimates Across Data
Sources. Kelly Raley, University of Texas-Austin |
Discussant: |
The Visible Hand: Editing Marital
History Data from Census Bureau Surveys |
In this session, Larry Bumpass and Kelly Raley will review existing measures of separation and divorce available in three major data sets: the National Survey of Family and Households (NSFH), the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), and the Current Population Survey (CPS). They will discuss the conceptual and methodological difficulties involved in gathering information on separation and divorce, and propose ideas for improvement. Martin O'Connell will act as discussant. |
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Day 2 | |
8:30-9:00 |
Registration |
Session 5, 9:00-10:30: |
Measuring Household Composition |
Organizer: |
Peter Brandon, University of Massachusetts/Lynne Casper, National Institutes of Health |
Presenters: |
Donna Morrison, Georgetown University Children and Living Arrangements in the Current
Population Survey Cohabitation and
Measurement of Family Trajectories Same-Sex Unmarried Partner Couples in Census 2000: How many are Gay and Lesbian? Using 'Relationship
Matrices' for More Accurate Identification of Children's
Living Arrangements and Circumstances
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Discussant: |
Jason Fields, U.S. Census Bureau |
The aim of this session is to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of existing surveys of measuring household relationships at one point in time. Papers will focus on issues such as the enumeration of persons within household, use of sample weights, and the capacity of surveys to precisely identify whether both biological parents of children are present within the household. The people and sources of data involved in this session include: Donna Morrison using the NLSY; Wendy Manning using the NSFG; Philip Cohen and Lynne Casper using the CPS; and Peter Brandon using the SIPP. Gary Gates (pending) will discuss measurement issues around same-sex couples. Jason Fields will act as discussant. |
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Session 6, 10:45-12:15: |
Measuring Father Involvement and Social Fathering |
Organizer: |
Sandy Hofferth, University of Maryland |
Chair: |
Seth Sanders, University of Maryland |
Presenters: |
Measuring Father Involvement
and Social Fathering: An Overview Randy Day, Brigham Young University
Biological Resident Fathers in Early Head Start by Type of Father
Involvement Marcy Carlson, Columbia University Rebekah Levine Coley, Boston College |
Discussant: |
Frances Goldsheider, Brown University |
The objective of this session is to compare estimates of father engagement, accessibility, responsibility, and positive emotional involvement across several recent data sets. Natasha Cabrera will focus on Early Head Start, Marcy Carlson on Fragile Families, Rebekah Coley on the Three-City Study, Randy Day on the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and Sandy Hofferth on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement. The focus is on residential fathers, that is, fathers living with their children. The presenters examine differences by the following variables: marital status and biological relationship of father to child, educational level of father, income of father, age of child, race/ethnicity, and proportion of time lived with the child from birth. The focus is on young children. |
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Session 7, 1:30-3:00: |
Measuring Family and Household Relationships Across Time and Space |
Organizer: |
Sandy Hofferth, University of Maryland at College Park |
Presenters: |
Poverty Estimates Using
Alternative Units of Analysis Is 'Single-Parent Family' a Misnomer
Misdirecting Research and Policies?
The Children's Residential History Calendar: Data Collection Using
Multiple Methods
Including the Military and
the Incarcerated in Surveys |
Discussant: |
Alison Aughinbaugh, Bureau of Labor Statistics |
Close family interactions cut across households and institutions. This is especially critical given the extent of coparenting across households and the fluidity of living arrangements of young men. Large distances between family members and the reasons for separate residences can affect these interactions. John Iceland will discuss the family versus household as the unit of analysis, especially as it affects poverty estimates. Barbara Downs will describe how children”Ēs living arrangements over time are determined as family members move in and out of different households. Martha Hill will present a new framework for studying families, especially focusing on how to treat family members that split their living arrangements across households. Bill Mosher will discuss the effects of institutionalization (military and jail) on estimates of living arrangements. |
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3:00-3:15 |
Coffee Break Sponsored by Child Trends and MPRC |
Session 8,3:15-4:45: |
Measuring Nonresidential Parenting |
Organizer: |
Elizabeth Peters, Cornell University |
Presenters: |
Nonresidential Parenting:
Measuring Contact between Children and Their Nonresident Fathers Elaine Sorensen, The Urban Institute
Nonresident Parenting:
Measuring Support Provided to Children by Nonresident Fathers Steven Cook, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison Maureen Waller, Cornell University Elizabeth Peters, Cornell University |
Discussant: |
Linda Mellgren, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services |
Our session will address two broad categories of non-residential father involvement: time and money. Specifically, we investigate measures of formal and informal child support and the timing of that support over a child's life-cycle. We also compare different measures of father-child contact, including days of contact, number of overnights, and physical and legal custody across several different data sets. Our analysis emphasizes the point that the complex and dynamic nature of families makes it difficult to capture non-resident father's involvement in a consistent way across children and time. In particular, we point out (1) the prevalence of families with multiple child support agreements due to the children in the household having different fathers; (2) differences between legal (formal) and informal arrangements; (3) changes in family circumstances that lead to the need to modify agreements; and (4) difficulties in capturing the nature of father-child contact due to variations in the type of contact and its timing. To illustrate these complexities and to show how different surveys are able to capture the complexities, we present data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY 1979 and 1997 cohorts), the National Survey of American Families (NSAF), Fragile Families, and several survey and administrative data sets from Wisconsin. |
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