The American Time Use Survey

MPRC proudly hosts the leading group of researchers in the country who focus on the time allocations of parents and children. This elite group of researchers includes Katharine Abraham (JPSM), Suzanne Bianchi (Sociology), Melissa Milkie (Sociology) and John P. Robinson (Sociology).

In 2004 the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data from the new American Time Use Survey (ATUS). These data should be enormously useful for addressing a wide range of research issues. To facilitate research using these exciting new data, the Maryland Population Research Center is establishing a user forum through which researchers can share information about problems they encounter in working with the data and exchange information that may be of general utility in preparing the data for analysis. To better facilitate this, MPRC established the American Time Use Resource Center Website in the fall of 2005. The site provides useful information as well as links to a variety of other time use resources.

Explaining Family Change (EFC) Initiative

MPRC researchers are part of the interdisciplinary team that responded to the NICHD initiative on “Designing New Models of Family Change and Variation,” a four-year project that has involved researchers from across the population community. The mandate of the project, described in the 2005 Seltzer et al. article in the Journal of Marriage and Family, is three fold: 1) to assess change and variation in family structure and behaviors in the U.S.; 2) to evaluate existing theories and datasets that are used to explain, understand and study family change and variation; and 3) to develop new models, and if possible, a comprehensive plan, for moving the field forward.

EFC @ Duke University

Under the project, MPRC held three interdisciplinary workshops on family change and variation. Each brought together MPRC associates from across disciplines as well as outside researchers, to explore theories and methodologies for studying family change. MPRC Director Seth Sanders (Economics) is a core member of the project’s Romantic Unions Working Group. He is collaborating with Thomas DiPrete of Columbia University, Pamela Smock of the University of Michigan, and Lynne Casper of the University of Southern California to produce a volume of research and innovations for the study of romantic unions. The group presented preliminary chapters at a September 2006 conference held at USC and the edited volume is in preparation. MPRC faculty associate Suzanne Bianchi (Sociology) is a core member of the Generations Working Group which also includes V. Joseph Hotz, Kathleen McGarry and Judith Seltzer of UCLA as well as Jeffrey Evans of NICHD. In collaboration with the Family Symposium at Penn State, the Generations Group helped organize an interdisciplinary conference in October 2006 that focused on new directions in the study of intra- and inter- generational relationships and wrote the lead paper for the conference. Bianchi is co-editing the volume from the conference.