Historically speaking divorce is a relatively recent phenomenon. Divorce has become more important over the last century and has undoubtedly had an impact on the social reproduction strategies typically linked to marriage. In this paper use is made of the concept of Assortative Mating to explore if initial and subsequent marriage partner choices differ on the basis of heterogamy. This research question is formulated in terms of two contrasting hypotheses: (1) the learning and (2) the marriage market hypotheses (Gelissen 2004). These two perspectives form the basis of the theoretical framework used in the empirical analyses reported. Here logistic and linear regression and log-linear modelling techniques are used. The data used to test the learning and marriage market hypotheses contains information on all officially recorded marriages in the Czech Republic over a ten year period (1994-2004) gathered by the Czech Statistical Office. The results presented reveal that divorce changes the socially reproductive aspects of marriage choice strategies, and these changes vary systematically on the basis of gender. Whereas first and subsequent marriage choices are very similar for men, repeated marriage choices for women are on the whole more diverse. A number of explanations explaining this gender based difference are presented. These explanations centre on dissimilarities in the context of repeated choices for men and women.
This article deals with the topic of mixed mode data collection in quantitative social research. The first part of the article introduces mixed mode data collection in terms of its development, characteristics and terminology. Thereafter, there is a discussion of mixed mode data research design and its usage. In the second part of this paper there is a discussion of important criteria in the effective used of a mixed mode data research design. Here particular attention is devoted to mode effects. The main insights from this overview of mixed mode data research are summarised in a schematic format. The concluding section provides a brief summary of a number of statistical methods for analysing mixed mode data such as Multitrait multimethod (MTMM) approach to studying construct validity. There are also some remarks regarding future developments in mixed mode data collection and analysis in the social sciences.
William Foote Whyte’s Street Corner Society is a classic study in which research was carried out on an Italian slum in a large US city. The methodology and conclusions of the study, however, depart from the standard typology. It was not community research, or a case study, and it did not even fit the narrative model of qualitative research. Whyte’s study did not use quantitative methods and yet reached analytical conclusions. Interpersonal relations are its primary focus. It tries to reveal the patterns of recurring group activities with the objective of capturing the hierarchy in small groups and the rules these groups are guided by. This article examines the motivations of Whyte’s influential study, his research strategy and his main method – participant observation. In the concluding section of this article there is a discussion of the basic paradigmatic debate in which Norman K. Denzin, Laurel Richardson and others criticised the methodology of the Street Corner Society while Arthur J. Vidich and other scholars praised this study’s innovative approach
This article reports the results of a content analysis of recently published papers on the relationship(s) between socioeconomic status and health. This study explores how scholars conceptualize and measure socioeconomic status and health. Consequently, this research investigates if significant differences in measurement exist both across subfields within sociology and across disciplines. The evidence presented reveals a remarkable variation in measurement strategies. Moreover, this variation exhibits a pattern that is not entirely predictable. This article concludes by presenting in detail some of the most widely used health indicators and proposing that current measurement practice may be improved by utilizing some more advanced scaling strategies.
The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the problems associated with the fielding of questions of a socially sensitive nature typically dealing with crime, health, and sexual activity in nationally representative sample surveys. This article presents an overview of previous research on this topic and associated themes such as the definition of sensitive survey questions, the emergence and impact of social desirability effects and application of the Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology (CASM) to mechanisms of question response on sensitive topics. Thereafter, this article maps out specific sources of error that are likely to occur when fielding sensitive survey questions; and highlights methods that may used to minimise measurement error, thereby enhancing data validity. The article concludes with an appraisal of some of the most influential criterion-validity used in this sub-field of survey research.
In this article it is argued that one of the main problems in data analysis is an over-emphasis on statistical rather than substantive significance. Statistical significance reports the improbability of specific outcomes from sample data using a null hypothesis. In contrast, substantive significance is concerned with the real-world meaning of data modelling results for a population, regardless of p value, where an effect size estimator is used for evaluation. The argument presented in this article begins with a consideration of how substantive significance may be defined. Thereafter, there is a summary of the literature on substantive significance and its measurement using a variety of effect size estimators, many of which are little known to researchers. This article also examines the topics of economic and clinical significance. In the conclusion, this study discusses attempts to synthesise different concepts of substantive significance and recommends some practical usage of these concepts.
As the probability to marry is stratified and differs for people with certain characteristics, it can be expected that some marriages are more likely to end in divorce than others. Among others in the literature the divorce risk factors are often mentioned: too low or too high age, marriage, educational level (low or high education) or educational or age heterogamy. This article describes the effects of age and education of both spouses and their combinations (heterogamy or homogamy) on the stability of marriage in the Czech Republic between 1994 and 2007. Analysis (using event history analysis) is based on data from the Czech Statistical Office and examines those individuals who entered into marriage in 1994. Although, the effect of age at marriage itself is found to be weak, the interaction between age at marriage for men and women exhibits more significant effects. The relationship between education and divorce risk takes the form of an inverted U: people with basic education and people with higher education have the lowest risk of divorce. The assumption of greater stability among homogamous couples is not observed; however, the probability of divorce is higher among heterogamous marriages where the woman is older or has higher education than man.
This paper focuses on the issue of surveying older people. Increasing interest in the issue of ageing and old age has been accompanied by infrequent debate on the methodological pitfalls that might influence research into this specific, albeit very heterogeneous population. Interviewers routinely complete post-interview questions that provide important information on such criteria as respondent difficulty in answering the questions posed. This article examines such difficulty in terms of interviewer and respondent characteristics. It investigates three potential explanations of why interviewers judge an interview as difficult: (1) interviewer characteristics (age and gender), (2) socio-demographic characteristics of the respondent and (3) respondents’ sense of well-being. The data used in this study were obtained from four surveys conducted with older people in the Czech Republic between 2007 and 2011. These surveys explored ageing and old age. The findings show the crucial importance of respondents’ sense of well-being and level of education. No interviewer age or gender effects were observed.