Record Details

Life Patterns Study, 1982

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Life Patterns Study, 1982
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AWB4FW
 
Creator Giele, Janet Zollinger
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description The 1982 Life Patterns Study is based on life histories of 2,902 alumnae who graduated from three colleges between 1934 and 1979. The purpose of this study was to examine how women's increased access to colleges and graduate schools in the 20th century influenced their life patterns. Rather than having to make a choice between full-time work and full-time homemaking, women increasingly engaged in multiple roles simultaneously: work, post-college education, marriage, and child-rearing.


This survey includes a coed college in the Midwest (n=941), a Seven Sisters college in the Northeast (n=1,223), and an African American women's college in the South (n=633) allowing for comparisons to be made by race (2131 white, 663 black, and 108 others) and by college. Responses from ten classes (1934, 1939, 1944, 1949, 1954, 1959, 1964, 1969, 1974, and 1979) also provide comparisons by age cohort. The study consisted of a fifteen-page questionnaire composed of both open- and closed-ended questions. The major topics covered in the questionnaire were: (1) education; (2) life pattern choices; (3) current activities; (4) major life events; (5) employment (6) family; (7) community service; and (8) reflections, as well as some basic background information. The questionnaire also included a Life Events Chart with the beginning and ending dates of major events in seven domains: (1) education; (2) marriage; (3) births of children; (4) co-residence; (5) employment; (6) residential moves; and (7) other events. This measure enables researchers to reconstruct the distinctive timing patterns and role combinations that different cohorts typically held at any given age.


Original paper materials for this study are available and applicants must be approved prior to using these materials.
 
Subject Social Sciences
 
Type survey