Fifty years of . . .

State of the I

Fifty years of PSC and ICPSR

Revealing the roots of a riot

Faculty Research

Next Generation

Welcome

Honors & Awards

PSC and ICPSR Anniversary Events

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ISR hosted its annual celebrations for retirees and donors this past November. Above, Bob and Bea Kahn visit with Gerald Gurin, and Next Generation researchers Igor Grossmann and Rona Carter talk about their research.

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Eva Menezes

2 | ISR SAMPLER | Spring 2011

COVER STORY:

ABOUT THE COVER: The cover is a word cloud generated from the article on page 4. For more information, go to http://www.tagxedo.com.

This magazine is printed on Rolland Enviro100, a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified and 100-percent post-consumer fiber paper that is chlorine-free and manufactured using biogas energy.

State of the I

With so many exciting projects and events on the horizon, 2011 is shaping up as one of the best years in ISR history. On a personal level, this is especially gratifying since this year marks the start of my second

term as ISR Director. Leading this remarkable institution has not only been a great honor but also a considerable challenge. The growing uses of biometric, biological, and environmental data along with an increase in both national and international collaborations have changed both the nature and the scope of social science research. And these changes are the impetus behind our coming physical expansion.

This year marks the start of construction on this project, which has been made possible thanks to an ARRA grant from the National Institutes of Health. Expanding ISR’s physical facilities has been one of my top priorities, and I hope that all of you will plan to join us at a pre-construction celebration planned for the afternoon of June 21, 2011, here in Ann Arbor. We will be providing details soon about this important event, but in the meantime, please save the date.

Other celebrations will be happening this year as well. The ISR Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) will kick off its 50th

member institutions October 5-7 in Ann Arbor. ICPSR is also planning a series of anniversary events throughout the year. Check the ICPSR website for the latest information: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu.

The ISR Population Studies Center is also celebrating its 50th Anniversary, with a celebration scheduled for October 20-23 in Ann Arbor. Again, the program

50th

Together, these two anniversaries have inspired our cover story examining

faculty who have joined ISR recently, and stories about some of the vital Next Generation of social scientists we’re committed to supporting.

Throughout our history, ISR has thrived because of our research faculty’s ability to earn federal grant dollars. But these federal funds do not allow us to support the independent work of graduate students and junior faculty. And so we

our Centers to enhance their awards to emerging scholars. On behalf of the Next Generation, my heartfelt thanks to all of you.

On a personal level,

this is especially

gratifying since this

year marks the start

of my second term as

ISR Director. Leading

this remarkable

institution has

not only been a

great honor but

also a considerable

challenge.

—James Jackson

Steve Kuzma

Spring 2011 | ISR SAMPLER | 3

Fifty years ago, when the ISR Population Studies Center was founded, the burning issues in population studies looked starkly different from today. Rising birth rates—coupled with increased longevity—were raising widespread fears that the world’s resources would be overwhelmed. The Population Bomb was still seven years away; in it, biologist author Paul Ehrlich would famously declare that “hundreds of millions of people will starve to death” by the 1970s. But researchers, policymakers, and foundations were already searching for ways to avert what many feared would be a broad humanitarian disaster. The worry wasn’t just that poor countries would be unable to feed their people; it was that growing populations would mire those countries in perpetual crisis and poverty. Spurred by these concerns, the Ford Foundation approached Michigan demographer Ronald Freedman in 1961 about setting up a population studies center—one of a series of university-based centers that the foundation would fund nationwide. The main goals: to train international students, develop demographic expertise around the world, study birth rates in developing countries, and study and evaluate family planning programs. In the years that followed, Michigan’s Population Studies Center (PSC) helped lead the charge in all those areas. “Fifty years ago, the main topic in demography was fertility,” says George Alter, demographer and acting director of the ISR Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. (See the back page for details on the two celebrations.)

Fertility work accelerated through the 1970s. The National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD), founded in 1962 to investigate human development

throughout life, began funding research on fertility, marriage, and the family, and also began providing grants to population studies centers for infrastructure, operations, and

of American students.

Then something surprising happened. By the early 1980s, it became clear that birth rates in most countries were dropping. In part, this was due to government actions, like family planning programs, maternal and child health services, and even coercion in some places. Shifts in family norms and expectations also played an important role.

Alter recalls Ron Freedman returning from a trip to Indonesia and talking about the importance of blue jeans and motorbikes. Parents told Freedman they were recalculating the expense of raising a large family now that their kids wanted trendy new clothing and expensive toys. “Ron saw those growing demands for consumer goods as one of the things that would lead to falling fertility,” Alter says. The drop in birth rates directed new demographic attention from the beginning of life to the end. “The world changed,” says sociologist and former PSC Director Albert Hermalin. “Fertility dropped, people were worried about aging populations, and the demographic community responded.” As censuses and surveys revealed the profound shift taking place, research funding priorities also shifted. Fertility research didn’t stop, but the National Institute on Aging (NIA) drove the push to understand more about the nature and challenges of aging, leading to the launch of ISR’s Health and Retirement Study in 1992, as well as many other studies.

That a main preoccupation of population studies could change so suddenly might seem jarring. But PSC researchers say the transition from Population Bomb to the Graying of the World just shows how dynamic and responsive the

ways populations change: fertility, mortality, and migration. Although the focus of research has shifted in response to world events—and funding—those three areas have

research; the technology and methods used; and the degree of research collaboration required.

That deepening has taken population studies beyond just fertility, mortality, and immigration, says PSC Director

study the social and economic causes and consequences of all these things and how they intersect,” she says. Adds Hermalin: “If you’re looking at causes and consequences of demographic factors, you can pretty much study anything you want!”

Take aging, for example. What began as an effort to understand issues of health, economic stability, and wellbeing during the post-retirement years gradually expanded to include a broad interest in health across generations. “Once you started studying aging, you were interested in people’s level of abilities, and chronic diseases, and the factors that make different people well or ill,” Hermalin says.

throughout life, began funding research

From the Population Bomb to the Graying of the World:

by Susan Rosegrant

4 | ISR SAMPLER | Spring 2011

“If I have arthritis, is that related to anything that happened to me when I was 20 years old? So then you start to incorporate a life course perspective.” In this broader context, the research goals of NIA and NICHD often were not so different.

Other areas of research—from families and marriage to inequality—deepened and evolved. Alter cites immigration studies as an example. Back in the 1960s, American researchers studying Mexican immigration to the United States never left the country; now such studies would not be considered valid without corresponding research in Mexico. The cross-border work, Alter says, led researchers to understand that migration streams have a strong circular pattern, and that some government policies designed to deter immigrants actually stop people from returning to their countries of origin.

In all areas of demography, research has become better

by Freedman looked only at married white women; the predecessor study to the National Survey of Family Growth soon expanded to include Black women and single mothers, and has become increasingly inclusive in the decades that followed. Many of the larger demographic surveys now use oversampling to study populations neglected in the past.

International work also is more important than ever, and U.S. researchers routinely collaborate with counterparts overseas.

“The diversity of populations we’re looking at and changes in society itself make demography look different now and will continue to change it in the future,” says Smock. “The questions have stayed rather consistent, but how we examine these questions has become much more complicated.”

As a result, a center that was already interdisciplinary—comfortably incorporating sociology and economics almost from the start—now includes researchers from more than a dozen academic disciplines, including anthropology, public health, and social work. The collaborations have made possible entirely new projects, particularly in the areas of medicine and biology. Demographers are working

with epidemiologists to learn more about neighborhood factors in disease, joining forces with doctors to study the effects of diabetes on mortality, and collaborating with geneticists to understand the interactions among environment and inherited traits.

This increased sophistication and complexity is apparent in the datasets used by demographers. Those downloaded most tend to be larger longitudinal surveys—like ISR’s Health and Retirement Study and the National Longitudinal

Study of Adolescent Health, which are archived at ICPSR—that scholars can adapt to many areas of research. “Demographers once worked from census counts and

are now asking much more sophisticated questions

about the biology of diseases,” Alter says. “The richness of the data is totally different.” Another striking example

Association of America’s annual meeting has mushroomed from 10 pages in 1965 to 457 in 2010.

In the decades ahead, the broadening and deepening that has characterized the last 50 years is bound to continue, researchers agree. Alter expects to see new kinds of collaborations between demographers and geneticists—particularly since the mapping of the genome has raised as many questions as it has answered. “Genes express themselves differently in different environments,” Alter says, “so there are likely to be a number of studies coming out of a new partnership between social science and genetics as we try to untangle what seems to be a lot more complicated than people expected.”

The diversity of populations we’re

looking at and changes in society itself

make demography look different now

and will continue to change it in the

future. —Pamela Smock

continued on p. 7

From the Population Bomb to the Graying of the World:

In July 1967, an early morning police raid of an unlicensed bar—or blind pig—on 12th Street in Detroit set off

escalated out of control. By the time the civil disturbance ended six days later, 43 people were dead, hundreds were injured, more than 7,000 people had been arrested, and entire blocks of East and West Detroit had been consumed

The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News threw every resource they had into covering the uprising. And as the disturbance died down, journalists and commentators, most of them white, struggled to understand who the rioters were and why they had taken to the streets. One theory was that those who looted and burned buildings were on the bottom rung of society—riff raff with no money and no education. A second theory speculated that rioters were recent arrivals from the South who had failed to assimilate and were venting their frustrations on the city.

But for many, those theories rang false. Philip Meyer, a national correspondent for the Knight Newspapers—parent company of the Free Presshelp the exhausted Free Press staff. In a brainstorming session the day after federal troops left the city, Meyer proposed that the Free Press do a survey to delve into the identities and attitudes of the rioters. It was a bold idea. Louis Harris had published survey results in a newspaper column and in Newsweek, and the University of California had just released a report analyzing the 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles, but no newspaper had ever tackled such a project. Moreover, Meyer wanted to publish the results in three weeks. The Watts report had taken two years.

“We had a lot of adrenaline going,” Meyer says with a laugh.

About 45 miles to the west in Ann Arbor, ISR psychologist Nathan Caplan was having similar thoughts. Caplan had spotted the smoke rising from Detroit on his way back from a family vacation, and had driven to Detroit’s 12th Street on the second day of the disturbance to see for himself what was going on. “I came back from there convinced that somebody has got to study this thing and get some sense of the inner dynamics while it’s still possible to get real-time data on its social/economic reality,” Caplan recalls.

to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) asking for funding to study the uprising. At about the same time, Meyer called an old grad school friend at ISR to see who might be willing to work with him on a fast but accurate survey for the Free Press. Caplan and Meyer met and quickly agreed to collaborate.

With the sponsorship of the Detroit Urban League and funding from area foundations and Henry Ford II, the survey team went to work. In one week, Meyer and Caplan drafted the questionnaire—pulling some questions from the Watts survey—and recruited

and trained about 30 interviewers from a group of Black Detroit school teachers

nearby enrichment training program. Meanwhile, ISR researcher John Robinson, recruited by Caplan, used the city directory to draw a random

probability sample of addresses in the riot area. The next week, interviewers spread out through the stricken neighborhoods, reaching a representative sample of 437 Black residents; each day’s completed interviews were sent to Ann Arbor to be quickly transcribed to punched

computer cards. The third week, Meyer and Caplan analyzed the data, and Meyer began to write.

On Sunday, August 20, a month after the uprising began, the Free Press's special survey report took the city—and the nation—by storm.

correlation between economic status and participation in the disturbance. College-educated residents were as likely as high school dropouts to have taken part. Recent immigrants from the South had not played a major role; in fact, Northerners were three times as likely to have rioted.

Revealing the Roots of a Riot

Senator Philip A. Hart (with glasses) next to mayor Jerome P. Cavanagh

inspect damage done as result of the 1967 Detroit riot.

Bentley Image Bank, Bentley Historical Library

Special survey report published by the Detroit Free Press on August 20, 1967.

(courtesy of Philip Meyer)

by Susan Rosegrant

continued on p. 7

6 | ISR SAMPLER | Spring 2011

Senator Philip A. Hart (with glasses) next to mayor Jerome P. Cavanagh

inspect damage done as result of the 1967 Detroit riot.

The top grievances of those surveyed were police brutality, overcrowded living conditions, poor housing, and lack of jobs. Finally, the rioters were a distinct subgroup and did

helped defuse the situation by showing how much good will there was in the Black community,” Meyer says.

The staff of the Detroit Free Press won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the riot. That, plus Meyer’s publication a few years later of Precision Journalism: A Reporter’s Introduction to Social Science Methods, changed media practices forever by inspiring newspapers to embrace the blending of social science and journalism.

NIMH sent Caplan's survey proposal to the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission. The commission, created by President Lyndon B. Johnson less than a week after the Detroit uprising began, gave Caplan the funding requested from NIMH.

Caplan and Jeffrey Paige, a graduate student, then worked together on a research design to repeat and extend the Free Press data, and collect new data in Newark, New Jersey.Their work became an integral part of the commission’s 1968 report, which made broad recommendations to correct inequalities between the races and to open opportunities for Black participation.

Smock says agencies like NICHD appear to be shifting their funding priorities to favor surveys that show a direct relevance to public health outcomes—a change that could move at least some research projects from the theoretical to the applied. “There’s going to be more and more interest in actual interventions, which makes sense given our increasing focus on health,” Smock says.

Of course, the exact shape population studies will take in the future must remain a calculated guess. After all, the Population Bomb predicted back in the 1960s never came to pass—at least in the manner foreseen. “The one thing demographers are always wrong about is projections,” says Hermalin with a laugh.

shines, he says, is in responding to the world’s changes. “It can react because it has the tools and the techniques and the point of view that enables it to move and work with other sciences,” Hermalin says. “What we can predict is that it will be responsive. What it will have to respond to, we don’t know.”

continued from p. 6 -­ ROOTS OF A RIOT

continued from p. 5 -­ 50 YEARS OF CHANGE

Early this year, ICPSR Acquisitions Director Amy Pienta conducted a webinar on creating a data management plan, and more than 500 researchers from all over the world participated. “Data management plans are now a hot topic among the research community,” said Pienta, noting that the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health now require such plans as part of grant applications on projects that will produce data. Other national organizations also endorse the need for sharing and archiving data, in order to maximize

To meet the need, ICPSR has launched a new blog titled ICPSR Guidance on Data Management Plans. The blog features ICPSR staff answers to questions ICPSR receives about how to write an effective data management plan. “We see the blog as a starting point for community discussion about writing data management plans,” says Pienta. Visit the blog at http://datamanagementplans.blogspot.com.

What to do with all the data

Spring 2011 | ISR SAMPLER | 7

Thinkstock

Faculty Research

8 | ISR SAMPLER | Spring 2011

ISR political scientist Ronald Inglehart was among the winners of an international grant competition from the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Education and Science, designed to attract leading scientists from around the world to Russian educational institutions.

to build Russian capacity as well as facilitate international research partnerships.

Inglehart’s project—the only social science project among the 40 winners— involves setting up a new laboratory for comparative social analysis at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, Russia. As part of the grant, 20 young social scientists from Russia will come to Ann Arbor to attend summer workshops in 2011 and 2012, and Inglehart will spend the fall terms of those years in St. Petersburg. Eventually, Inglehart hopes that other U-M faculty and students will also have the opportunity to study and conduct research in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In addition, the Russian Ministry of Education and Science will fund surveys in Russia and several other former Soviet countries for the 6th wave of the World Values Survey, which Inglehart directs.

“This is an extremely important project because it helps establish close working relationships between scientists in Russian and Western universities that will be stimulating for both sides. If it succeeds, it will facilitate regular exchanges of scientists and students between Russia and the U.S. and many other Western countries,” says Inglehart.

To Russia, for data

Many U.S. women have children by more than one man

prevalence of multiple partner fertility shows that 28 percent of all U.S. women with two or more children have children by more than one man. The study was presented April 1 in Washington, D.C., at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America.

“I was surprised at the prevalence,” says demographer Cassandra

Dorius, a postdoctoral fellow at ISR’s Population Studies Center. “Multiple partner fertility is an important part of contemporary American family life, and a key component to the net of disadvantage that many poor and uneducated women face every day.”

While previous studies have examined how common multiple partner fertility is among younger women, or among women who live in urban areas, the

assess prevalence among a national sample of U.S. women who have completed their child-bearing years.

For the study, Dorius analyzed data on nearly 4,000 U.S. women who were interviewed more than 20 times over a period of 27 years, as part of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

She found that having children by different fathers was more common among minority women, with 59

percent of African American mothers, 35 percent of Hispanic mothers, and 22 percent of White mothers reporting multiple partner fertility. Women who were not living with a man when they gave birth and those with low income and less education were also more likely to have children by different men.

But she also found that multiple partner fertility is surprisingly common at all levels of income and education and is frequently tied to marriage and divorce rather than just single parenthood.

“I was a year into this project before I realized that my mother was one of these women,” says Dorius. “We tend to think of women with multiple partner fertility as being only poor single women with little education and money, but, in fact, at some point, most were married, and working, and going to school, and doing all the things you’re supposed to do to live the American Dream.”

Thinkstock

Brain scans showing neural reactions to pro-health messages can predict if you’ll keep that resolution to quit smoking more accurately than you yourself can. That’s according to a study published recently in Health Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal.

“We targeted smokers who were already taking action to quit,” says Emily Falk, the lead author of the study and director of the Communication Neuroscience Laboratory at ISR and the U-M Department of Communication Studies. “And we found that neural activity can predict behavior change, above and beyond people’s own assessment of how likely they are to succeed.“

“These results bring us one step closer to the ability to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to select the messages that are most likely to affect behavior change both at the individual and population levels. It seems that our brain activity may provide information that introspection does not.”

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Falk and colleagues Matthew Lieberman, Elliot Berkman, and Danielle Whalen tested 28 heavy smokers, recruited from an anti-smoking program. Read more at http://ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=8238.

Resolved to quit smoking? Brain scans reveal likely success

Watch a video inteview with Falk on ISR’s YouTube channel: http://youtu.be/FmQPuuIPjmQ

These results bring us one

step closer to the ability

to use functional magnetic

resonance imaging (fMRI)

to select the messages that

are most likely to affect

behavior change.

—Emily Falk

Faculty Research

More people believe in “climate change” than in “global warming,” according to a University of Michigan study published in Public Opinion Quarterly. “Wording matters,” says Jonathon Schuldt, a Ph.D. candidate in the U-M Department of Psychology who co-authored the study with ISR researchers Sara Konrath and Norbert Schwarz.

For the research, Schuldt, Konrath and Schwarz conducted a question wording experiment in the American Life Panel, an online survey conducted by RAND, with a national sample of 2,267 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to report their level of certainty about whether global climate change is a serious problem.

Overall, 74 percent of people thought the problem was real when it was referred to as “climate change,” while about 68 percent thought it was real when it was referred to as “global warming.”

As part of the study, the researchers also analyzed the use of

liberals and conservatives used different terms. Conservative think tanks tend to call the phenomenon “global warming,”

while liberal think tanks call it “climate change.” And when the researchers analyzed responses to the survey by political orientation, they found that the different overall levels in belief were driven almost entirely by Republicans. While 60 percent of Republicans reported that they thought “climate change” was real, for example, only 44 percent said they believed in the reality of “global warming.” In contrast, about 86 percent of Democrats thought climate change was a serious problem, no matter what it was called.

The good news is that Americans may not be as polarized on the issue as previously thought. “The extent of the partisan divide on this issue depends heavily on question wording,” says Schwarz.. “When the issue is framed as 'global warming,' the partisan divide is nearly 42 percentage points. But when the frame is 'climate change,' the partisan divide drops to about 26 percentage points.”

It’s all in a name: ‘Global warming’ versus ‘Climate change’

Thinkstock

Marijuana use is rising, ecstasy use is beginning to rise, and alcohol use is declining among U.S. teens, according to the 2010 Monitoring the Future Study of a nationally representative sample of American teens.

The ISR survey also found that smoking – which had been declining since the mid-1990s – showed signs of increasing among younger teens. Since its inception in 1975, the survey has been funded under a series of research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one of the National Institutes of Health. In 2010, more than 46,000 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, enrolled in nearly 400 secondary public and private schools, participated in the study.

According to Lloyd Johnston, the study’s principal investigator, smoking behavior among younger teens is particularly important because it is predictive of their smoking behavior as they become older teens and young adults. “Smoking is a habit that tends to stay with people for a long time, leading to ongoing differences between different graduating classes of students that persist into adulthood,” he said.

“Scientists call it a cohort effect, and it occurs largely because cigarette smoking is so addictive.”

Peak smoking levels among teens were reached around 1996 among 8th and 10th graders and in 1997 among 12th

immediately following those peak levels, smoking among teens fell sharply. This likely was due in large part to increased public attention to the issue as well as to sharply rising prices, caused in part by new state sales taxes on cigarettes.

All three grades now have rates of smoking that are far below their peak rates in 1996 or 1997, Johnston points out. For example, 30-day prevalence is down by two thirds (66%) among 8th graders, by over half (55%) among 10th graders, and by nearly half (48%) among 12th graders.

“These are extremely important changes that will carry very substantial consequences for the health and longevity of this generation of young Americans,” states Johnston. “But there are still

themselves at risk for a host of serious diseases and a premature death because they are taking up cigarette smoking.”

Smoking in the 30 days prior to the survey was reported by 7%, 14%, and 19% of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, respectively. Rates of daily smoking during the past 30 days are 3%, 7%, and 11% in the three grades, respectively. And based on the experience of previous 12th-grade classes, quite a number of the lighter smokers will become daily smokers after they leave high school.

http://www.monitoringthefuture.org.

Faculty ResearchMonitoring the Future Study identifies 2010 teen drug use and smoking trends

These are extremely

important changes that

will carry very substantial

consequences for the

health and longevity of

this generation of young

Americans.

—Lloyd Johnston Cigarettes: Percentage who used in last 30 days

PERCENT

YEAR

Source

: The

Mon

itorin

g th

e Fu

ture

Stu

dy

Thinkstock

10 | ISR SAMPLER | Spring 2011

Working mothers are two-and-a-half times as likely as working fathers to interrupt their sleep to take care of

nationally representative data documenting substantial gender differences in getting up at night, mainly with babies and small children. Women are not only more likely to get up at night to care for others, their sleep interruptions last longer—an average of 44 minutes for women, compared to about 30 minutes for men. “Interrupted sleep is a burden borne disproportionately by women,” said ISR sociologist Sarah Burgard. “And this burden may not only affect the health and well-being of women, but also contribute to continuing gender inequality in earnings and career advancement.”

The study, published in Social Forces, was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Aging, and the Sloan Foundation. Burgard analyzed time-diary data from approximately 20,000 working parents from 2003

to 2007, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Time Use Survey. She found that the gender gap in sleep interruptions was greatest during the prime childbearing and child-rearing years of the twenties and thirties.

Among dual-career couples with a child under the age of one, for example, 32 percent of women reported sleep interruptions to take care of the baby, compared with just 11 percent of men. The proportion reporting interrupted sleep declined with the age of the child, with 10 percent of working mothers and 2 percent of working fathers with children ages 1 to 2 reporting sleep interruptions, and just 3 percent of working mothers and 1 percent of working fathers with children ages 3 to 5.

“What’s really surprising,” Burgard said, “is that gender differences in night-time caregiving remain even after adjusting for the employment status, income and education levels of each parent. Among parents of infants who are the sole breadwinner in a couple, for example, 28 percent of women who are the sole breadwinner report getting up at night to take care of their children, compared to just 4 percent of men who are the only earner in the couple.”

“The prime childbearing years are also the time when earnings trajectories are being established,” Burgard says, “and career advancement opportunities could well be foregone if women reduce their paid work time or see their workplace performance affected because of exhaustion. As a result, sleep interruption may represent an under-

chances and well-being.”

interventions to improve sleep. “Generally, these interventions target individual behaviors, such as the use of alcohol, caffeine or tobacco,” said Burgard. “Or they focus on nightly routines that help people to relax and fall asleep or stay asleep more successfully. But for parents of young children, the best approach might be discussions and negotiations about whose turn it is to get up with the baby tonight.”

Faculty ResearchWake up, Mom!

... this burden may not only

affect the health and well-

being of women, but also

contribute to continuing

gender inequality in earnings

and career advancement.

—Sarah Burgard

Watch a video inteview with Burgard on ISR’s YouTube channel: http://youtu.be/7jvrUjqoVwM.

Thinkstock

Spring 2011 | ISR SAMPLER | 11

Support ing the Next Generation The generous donors who contribute to ISR’s twenty three research funds and fellowships provide critical support for the research and training activities of graduate students, post-doctoral candidates, young

researchers, and junior faculty in a range of disciplines. Following are two profiles, written by Susan Rosegrant, that capture some of the innovative work being undertaken by recent award winners.

To help put herself through Florida International University while earning her undergraduate degree in psychology, Rona Carter took a job at the Miami-based PACE Center for Girls,

Carter was an administrative assistant, but she got to know some of the students well—students who were struggling with truancy, depression, delinquency, and other problems.

also recruited them to help her write stories and take photos for the school newsletter. Others she escorted on college tours, hoping to light a spark of possibility. “I wondered what happened to these girls, why are they here?” Carter recalls.

Those early questions pointed Carter towards the research

Douvan Junior Scholar, Carter is investigating how biological

girls’ behavioral and psychological adjustments. At the PACE Center, Carter says, some of the girls who were having a hard time had hit puberty early, and had larger breasts and other physical developments that set them apart from their peers. “Someone could look as if she was a woman, yet she was still the same age as someone who looked like a child,” she explains. “So I wondered, could puberty somehow play a role in these negative outcomes that I was seeing with girls?”

Carter believes the answer is yes. But she’s also discovered that puberty involves a complex web of factors that confronts maturing girls.

In fact, her research shows that the actual age of onset appears less important than how a girl interprets the event.

react, but perhaps most importantly by how she herself perceives her timing relative to her peers. Girls who mature early can face a range of pressures, including awkwardness with friends and come-ons from suddenly interested older boys. Girls who mature late may feel left out, unpopular, and depressed.

Carter, who had a nomadic childhood as the youngest of four daughters of a military man, hopes that her research may some day result in improved programs to help girls navigate their coming-of-age years with less stress and depression and fewer negative outcomes.

“We can maybe change those trajectories for them,” she says. She also hopes some day to serve as a mentor to university students. “I didn’t know Libby [Douvan],” Carter says, “but I’ve read a lot about her.” Among the characteristics that impressed her, Carter says, was Douvan’s “dedication to mentoring—to advising the next generation of researchers.”

That kind of mentoring made all the difference in Carter’s own life. As an assistant back at the PACE Center, she wasn’t sure what her long-term goals should be. But the then director took her in hand. “She said, ‘Let’s make a plan. Let’s do this! You want to do psychology? You can do a Ph.D.!” Carter adds: “I wouldn’t be here without bumping into people. That’s what’s really been helpful in moving me forward in my research, and helping me come to the realization that I can become a professor.” Her advice to other young scholars? “Bump into people. Try to be visible.” She adds: “You never know which person you bump into is going to help you move forward.”

Morris will be held on Sunday, October 16, 2011, at the Kerrytown Concert

peshield@umich.edu.

Rona Carter2010 Libby Douvan Junior Scholar in Life Course Development

Watch a video inteview with Carter on ISR’s YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/umisr.

12 | ISR SAMPLER | Spring 2011

Eva Menezes

Support ing the Next Generation

Spring 2011 | ISR SAMPLER | 13

Housework—a domestic burden borne disproportionately

despite its undeniable impact on family dynamics, housework hasn’t always been regarded as a topic worthy of research. “Everyone does housework, it’s so ordinary, we don’t really care about it, why should we study it?” asks Alexandra Killewald, who recently received her Ph.D. in public policy and sociology from the University of Michigan. “But I think that it’s precisely because these are events that affect so many people that it’s important to understand what’s going on with them, in particular from the perspective of fairness.” In a paper published in the November 2010 issue of Social Science Research, Killewald takes on two contrasting theories of housework: the autonomy perspective, which predicts that the amount of housework women do will fall steadily as their earnings increase; and the compensatory gender display theory, which says wives’ housework hours will fall until they start earning more than their husbands, at which point the amount of housework they do will increase. The latter theory, Killewald says, may strike people unfamiliar with the literature as absurd: “It’s a particularly interesting theory, because it suggests that more money can make you worse off, which is not how we think money works in any situation.”

Killewald believed both theories fell short, and she set out to provide a more nuanced understanding of housework hours using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. What she found is that the relationship between earnings and housework is not strictly linear. Wives may be happy to bring in a cleaner or eat some meals out, Killewald says, but no matter how much they earn, they are unwilling or unable to delegate all of these chores: some may lack good outsourcing options; others may see home cooking as an essential expression of love. As a result, the autonomy perspective fails to explain wives’ ability—or inability—to buy a pass from housework.

But husbands don’t feel the same responsibility for or emotional connection to housework. “…there is something about the experience of being a wife, as opposed to a husband, that causes even high-earning wives to spend considerably more time in housework than their husbands, even when they out-earn them,” Killewald wrote. It is this gender difference, combined with wives’ inability to outsource all housework, that leads high-earning women to keep making dinner, and that led some researchers to see a compensatory gender reaction, Killewald claims.

Killewald, who grew up in Ann Arbor in a two-career household, has social science in her blood: Her father, political scientist Christopher Achen, was a researcher at ISR’s Center for Political Studies before going to Princeton in 2005. Her mother Tena, a University of Michigan development

Region. “ISR was the place I had to go drive to pick up my dad from work,” Killewald recalls. With dissertation in hand, Killewald has settled with her physicist husband in the Cambridge area, and is working as a human services researcher at Mathematica Policy Research.

Killewald says her mother has followed her research on housework closely, having had to manage the balance between work and family herself. As for her father? “If my

Michigan football game,” she says drily. “There’s no way he’s talking about social science.”

Sasha Killewald

Courtesy of Sasha Killewald

Thinkstock

2010 Marshall Weinberg Research Fellow

WelcomeJohn GarciaDirector, ICPSR Resource Center for Minority Data Director, CPS International Center for the Advancement of

Scientific Literacy

As spring yard sales pop up where snow piles recently sat, you might notice a barrel-chested man with silvery hair and a quick slanting smile expertly evaluating the items on display. He’ll likely be decisive, but ready to stop if an interesting object—or comment—catches his attention. John Garcia, who joined ICPSR last summer as director of the Resource Center for Minority Data, became expert at prowling yard sales during his 38 years as a political scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. For

is both a pleasing process and a source of sudden joy.

It isn’t too much of a stretch to compare Garcia’s agility at treasure picking with his ability to pick and choose among interests to create a rich—if sometimes unconventional—academic life. Garcia is well established as an expert in Latino politics; more broadly, his research looks at the relative access different groups in American society have to resources, power,

from mainstream political science research to studies on dental utilization and cervical cancer screening among minority populations. Add to that his interests outside academia—poetry, calligraphy, essay writing, music—and you begin to get a sense of the man.

At ICPSR, Garcia’s diverse skills suit his roles. He is expanding the collection of the Resource Center for Minority Data, in part by calling in favors from his research colleagues; increasing the archive’s visibility, for example, by hosting workshops; and looking for new funding sources. Garcia is also ICPSR’s director of community outreach, a new position created for him. He’s

to pursue broader goals, such as trying to get community colleges and more diverse institutions to sign up as ICPSR members. “From the organization’s point of view, it’s making use of what I bring to the table,” Garcia says.

Ann Arbor’s yard sales so far haven’t yielded the same riches as Tucson’s. But Garcia is starting to feel settled. Although he spent most of his life in Texas and the Southwest, Garcia has history in Michigan going back to the 1960s; he has friends in Battle Creek, worked as a camp counselor at Interlochen, and came to U-M in 1979 as a visiting associate professor and SRC

strange sense, Garcia says, moving here was like coming home.

The idea that a majority of voters don’t understand pressing issues like stem cell research and climate change strikes Jon Miller as simply wrong. Miller, a research scientist who

fundamental to a functioning democracy.

“People ought to know what they’re voting for, and it ought to be more than do you like the way the person looks, or do you like the spouse and the dog,” he says.

Miller, 69, whose most recent appointments were at Michigan State and Northwestern, has devoted decades to thinking about science, citizenship, and education. In 1979, he was the

National Science Board used the data he collected for 20 years as part of its biennial Science and Engineering Indicators.

In recent years, researchers in more than 40 countries have run surveys based on Miller’s core set of questions—questions that remain relevant, he says, by focusing on basic constructs of science, such as viruses, DNA, and galaxies, rather than on the

The good news, Miller says, is that the understanding of science in the U.S. is increasing. According to his surveys, 28 percent

compared to 10 percent in 1988. Younger people are doing even better. Miller credits the uptick and the U.S.’s second place

the general education approach of U.S. colleges, which compels students to take some science courses; the U.S. is the only country with such a requirement.

Now that Miller is at ISR, two of his long-term efforts, the

the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, have found permanent homes. For Miller, the move is a profound change, but a good one.

200 people who do surveys,” he says, with a laugh.

“Often, I was the only one.”

Jon Miller

Courtesy of Jon MillerU-M Photo Services

14 | ISR SAMPLER | Spring 2011

Director, CPS International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy

Spring 2011 | ISR SAMPLER | 15

Ted Brader, ISR Center for Political Studies, was awarded the 2009 Emerging Scholar Award for the Elections, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior section of the American Political Science Association. The Emerging Scholar Award

who is within 10 years of her or his Ph.D.

Anna Grzymala-Busse, ISR Center for Political Studies, was named the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies and Director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia at the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.

James House, ISR Survey Research Center, was named a Visiting Scholar in Residence for 2010-2011 by The Russell Sage Foundation. House is working on a book on health and health care, exploring the potential for health care policies focused on improving population health, rather than cost, to ameliorate the U.S. health care crisis.

James S. Jackson, Director of ISR, received the Academy Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Biomedical Science from the New York Academy of Medicine.

science research to include biometric and biological data, including genetic material.

John Jackson and Walter Mebane, ISR Center for Political Studies,

class of Fellows of the Society for Political Methodology. Selection “honors individuals who have made outstanding scholarly contributions to the development of

political methodology, and whose methodological work has had a major international impact on subsequent scholarship

appropriate in other areas.”

Sara Konrath, ISR Research Center for Group Dynamics, received the 2010 University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program outstanding research mentor award.

David Lam, ISR Population Research Center, was installed as 2011 president of the Population Association of America, established in 1930 to promote the improvement, advancement and progress of the human race through research of problems related to human population.

Maggie Levenstein, ISR Survey Research Center, was elected President of the Business History Conference, an organization devoted to encouraging all aspects of research, writing, and teaching of business history and the environment in which business operates.

Helen Levy, ISR Survey Research Center, was promoted to Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a

founded in 1920 and dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works.

Nancy McGovern, ISR Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, was named a “Digital Preservation Pioneer” by the U.S. Library of Congress for exemplary work in collecting and preserving the nation’s digital heritage.

Ted Brader

Political Studies, was awarded the 2009 Emerging Scholar Award for the Elections, Public Opinion and Voting Behavior section of the American Political Science Association. The Emerging Scholar Award

Anna Grzymala-Busse

Political Studies, was named the Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of European and Eurasian Studies and Director of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia at the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.

James House

Center, was named a Visiting Scholar in Residence for 2010-2011 by The Russell Sage Foundation. House is working on a book on health and health care, exploring the potential for health care policies focused on improving population health, rather than cost, to ameliorate the U.S. health care crisis.

Sara Konrath

Group Dynamics, received the 2010 University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program outstanding research mentor award.

John Jackson

ISR Center for Political Studies,

class of Fellows of the Society for Political Methodology. Selection “honors individuals who have made outstanding scholarly contributions to the development of

political methodology, and whose methodological work has

David Lam

Center, was installed as 2011 president of the Population Association of America, established in 1930 to promote the improvement, advancement and progress of the human race through research of problems related to human population.

Maggie Levenstein

Center, was elected President of the Business History Conference, an organization devoted to encouraging all aspects of research, writing, and teaching of business history and the environment in which business operates.

Helen Levy

was promoted to Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a

founded in 1920 and dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works.

James S. Jackson

the Academy Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Biomedical Science from the New York Academy of Medicine.

science research to include biometric and biological data, including genetic material.

Nancy McGovern

Consortium for Political and Social Research, was named a “Digital Preservation Pioneer” by the U.S. Library of Congress for exemplary work in collecting and preserving the nation’s digital heritage.

Political Studies, was awarded the 2009 Emerging Scholar Award for the Elections, Public Opinion

Honors & Awards

426 Thompson St., PO Box 1248Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248 USA

INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH

James S. Jackson, ISR DirectorPatrick Shields, ISR Director of External RelationsDiane Swanbrow, ISR Director of CommunicationsEva Menezes, Multimedia DesignerSusan Rosegrant, Contributing Editor

FOR INQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACTPatrick Shields at 734.764.8369peshield@umich.edu

w w w.isr.umich.edu

The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/a!rmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and a!rmative action, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination and equal opportunity for all persons regardless of race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, or Vietnam-era veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the Senior Director for Institutional Equity and Title IX/Section 504 Coordinator, O!ce of Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388. IS

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50Celebrating yearsREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: Julia Donovan Darlow, Ann Arbor;; Laurence B. Deitch, Bingham Farms;; Denise Ilitch, Birmingham Farms;; Olivia P. Maynard, Goodrich;; Andrea Fischer Newman, Ann Arbor;; Andrew C. Richner, Grosse Pointe Park;; S. Martin Taylor, Grosse Pointe Farms;; Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor;; Mary Sue Coleman,

The Next 50 Years: Innovation in a Data-Driven WorldOctober 5-7, 2011 - Ann Arbor - Launch of 50th Anniversary

A series of exhibits and receptions will be held from November 2011 through May 2012 in Boston, Chicago, Ann Arbor, and San Francisco.

Closing Event: June 7, 2012 - Ann Arbor

Speaker: Elinor Ostrom, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

For more information about the anniversary events in Ann Arbor and other cities, refer in coming months to the ICPSR home page,

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu. For information about the October launch, go to: http://bit.ly/icpsr50.

ISR INTER-UNIVERSITY CONSORTIUM FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RESEARCH

Honoring the Past & Preparing for the Future October 20-23, 2011 - Ann Arbor

A reunion and celebration with professional and social gatherings will be held in Ann Arbor.

Opening Reception: October 20Formal Program: October 21-22Poster Session: October 22Formal Banquet: October 22

For more information or to RSVP go to: http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/fifty.

ISR POPULATION STUDIES CENTER