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Author: Smith, Herbert L.
Resulting in 5 citations.
1. Hickes, Jennifer M.
Smith, Herbert L.
Fertility in the U.S. Military - Evidence from the NLSY
Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Meetings, March 2001
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Fertility; Marital Status; Military Personnel

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper is an attempt to clarify the status of fertility among military women. We begin by comparing the fertility of those military women available in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) with civilian women drawn from a parallel sample. We have already commented on the complex selection processes involved in getting into and out of a longitudinal sample of military personnel, and these selection processes interact directly with the various arguments just described. Any direct comparison of military with non-military fertility (or pregnancy) runs the risk of confounding organizational aspects of the military as "cause" (e.g., health care benefits) with antecedent characteristics of the military. Similarly, the design of the NLSY creates challenges: it starts as a cross-section of military personnel, who then depart for reasons indirectly (e.g., age) or directly (e.g., pregnancy) related to fertility. To deal with these problems, we have adopted an analysis strategy based on matching, since the civilian sample in the NLSY yields a large reservoir of apposite controls suitable for very focused comparisons.
Bibliography Citation
Hickes, Jennifer M. and Herbert L. Smith. "Fertility in the U.S. Military - Evidence from the NLSY." Presented: Washington, DC, Population Association of America Meetings, March 2001.
2. Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes
Smith, Herbert L.
Family Formation Among Women in the U.S. Military: Evidence from the NLSY
Journal of Marriage and Family 67,1 (February 2005): 1-13.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-2445.2005.00001.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Council on Family Relations
Keyword(s): Employment; Family Formation; Fertility; Marriage; Military Personnel; Military Service; Propensity Scores

Although female employment is associated with lower levels of completed fertility in the civilian world, we find family formation rates among U.S. military women to be comparatively high. We compare enlisted women with civilian women using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N= 3,547), the only data set to measure simultaneously the nuptiality and fertility of both populations. Using propensity score matching, we show that the fertility effect derives primarily from early marriage in the military, a surprisingly 'family-friendly' institution. This shows that specific organizational and economic incentives in a working environment may offset the more widespread contemporary social and economic factors that otherwise depress marriage and fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Bibliography Citation
Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes and Herbert L. Smith. "Family Formation Among Women in the U.S. Military: Evidence from the NLSY." Journal of Marriage and Family 67,1 (February 2005): 1-13.
3. Smith, Herbert L.
A Reanalysis of Data Concerning the Effects of Maternal Employment on the Vocabularies of Four-Year-Old Children
Working Paper, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 1990
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Keyword(s): Child Development; Childbearing, Adolescent; Children; Family Income; Gender Differences; General Assessment; Maternal Employment; Mothers; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Research Methodology; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Tests and Testing

In a recent article in Demography, Desai, Chase-Lansdale, and Michael (1989) use data from the NLSY to examine the effects of maternal employment on the intellectual ability of young children. The chief vehicle is the regression of scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Revised (PPVT) on measures of maternal employment plus a variety of control variables. They conclude that maternal employment has a statistically significant adverse impact on a child's intellectual ability, but only for boys and only then for boys in higher income families. This paper reanalyzes data used by Desai et al. (1989) and concludes that their findings are largely unsubstantiated and very much open to misinterpretation. Among the criticisms discussed: The sample used in the article (NLSY) is designed to over-represent the disadvantaged American population and self-selection of women on the basis of early childbearing makes the sample even more unrepresentative; socioeconomic status (SES) is op erationalized in terms of an income measure that ignores mother's earnings, but is then discussed and interpreted in terms of the mother's education; the presence of sampling weights distorts characteristics of the sample; the crucial result of the study involves what is functionally a three-factor interaction--the effect of maternal work on child's PPVT score varies by the sex of the child and the level of non-maternal family income. Put simply, there is no statistical evidence that the effect of maternal work on child's PPVT score varies by either the child's sex or the family's non-maternal income, much less the two together.
Bibliography Citation
Smith, Herbert L. "A Reanalysis of Data Concerning the Effects of Maternal Employment on the Vocabularies of Four-Year-Old Children." Working Paper, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 1990.
4. Smith, Herbert L.
Dechter, Aimee R.
Effects of Nonresponse on the Measurement of Social Life Feelings
In: Relevance of Attitude Measurement in Sociology. P. Schmidt and D. Krebs, eds. Mannheim, Germany: Center for Survey Research, 1990
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: Center for Survey Research and Methodology, Mannheim, Germany (ZUMA)
Keyword(s): Data Quality/Consistency; Internal-External Attitude; Locus of Control (see Rotter Scale); Nonresponse; Research Methodology; Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The problem of survey non-response is particularly troublesome in the measurement of social life feelings since the refusal to participate in a study may be one manifestation of certain attitudes and sentiments. This paper examines the relationship between social life feelings reports and subsequent non-response. Employing data from the 1968-85 waves of the NLS Young Women, the authors focus on the 1970, 1973, and 1978 responses to a modified eleven item version of the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale and the 1983 responses to four of the items capturing personal control. In an analysis of the association (ANOAS) between 1970 item responses (item non-response, mostly internal, somewhat internal, somewhat external, mostly external) and 1973 outcomes (refusal, other non-interview, item non-response, and the four locus of control scales), subjects who responded to the 1973 survey but not to a given item, scored very low in the cooperativeness dimension. Refusals scaled somewhere in between those with item non-response and those who responded to the item regardless of the proffered response. It is reassuring that along the locus of control dimension, refusing to be re-interviewed, being lost to follow-up for some other reason, and refusing or being unable to respond to a Rotter item are not associated with the scaling on locus of control in the previous interview. Of course, the possibility remains that non-respondents are more likely to shift their feelings one way or the other relative to those who were re-interviewed.
Bibliography Citation
Smith, Herbert L. and Aimee R. Dechter. "Effects of Nonresponse on the Measurement of Social Life Feelings" In: Relevance of Attitude Measurement in Sociology. P. Schmidt and D. Krebs, eds. Mannheim, Germany: Center for Survey Research, 1990
5. Smith, Herbert L.
Dechter, Aimee R.
No Shift in Locus of Control Among Women During the 1970s
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60,4 (April 1991): 638-640.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022351402022756
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Young Women
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Keyword(s): Data Quality/Consistency; Internal-External Attitude; Locus of Control (see Rotter Scale); Rotter Scale (see Locus of Control)

Contrary to reports published previously (Doherty, 1983; Doherty and Baldwin, 1985), there is no evidence of a shift in locus of control among U.S. women during the 1970s--at least not as revealed by responses of female subjects from the NLS of Mature Women and Young Women to a battery of Rotter Scale items administered on three occasions during that decade. The authors show that the apparent shift toward more external responses is completely an artifact of uncorrected coding errors in earlier releases of these data. The absence of any true change in locus of control among these women raises substantial questions about theories put forward to explain this nonexistent shift. The authors counsel circumspection.
Bibliography Citation
Smith, Herbert L. and Aimee R. Dechter. "No Shift in Locus of Control Among Women During the 1970s." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60,4 (April 1991): 638-640.