Week 1: Discussion questions
Bumpass (1990)
1. Let's think for a minute about the gap between theory and data that often plagues demographic studies of family behavior (or social science research, general). What are some of the problems that we face in trying to evaluate alternative explanations for a given outcome using limited data. Bumpass gives example of educational attainment and women's marriage timing.
2. How should we go about trying to understand/explain "across the board" changes in family behavior, e.g., increasing divorce in U.S., later marriage in Japan? By "across the board," I mean change that is similar across social and demographic characteristics.
3. What are some of the major consequences of divorce that demographers/sociologists are interested in trying to understand?
4. What are some of the major implications of the increasing prevalence of cohabitation that demographers/sociologists are interested in trying to understand?
5. Why does the emergence of cohabitation as a common event in people's lives present a difficult challenge in demographic research?
6. A remedial clarification question. What exactly is meant by the life table estimates such as "roughly 60% of marriages are projected to end in divorce" or "70% of black women will have a child while unmarried if recent levels persist" (p.488)? This same question could be asked in regard to the Popenoe paper.
7. Bumpass discusses (either directly or indirectly) the importance of diffusion, feedback mechanisms, and reciprocal causality in studies of family behavior. These are all issues we will return to repeatedly. Based on Bumpass' discussion, how do all of these relate to explanations of increasing divorce? Also, how are these important for understanding how increasing divorce may influence other demographic behaviors?
Elder (1977)
1. The life course approach described in this paper is a tremendously important tool in family demography/sociology. How would you summarize the key components of the life course approach?
1. The life course approach described in this paper is a tremendously important tool in family demography/sociology. How would you summarize the key components of the life course approach?
2. What are some of the key differences between the life course approach to the family and the family cycle approach?
3: What is the difference between generation and cohort and why is it important not to equate the two in your research?
4: What do the terms individual time, family time, and historical time refer to?
Popenoe and responses (1993)
1. What exactly does Popenoe mean when he says that the American family is in "decline"? Do you find this to be a reasonable definition of "family decline?"
2. Why does he think that family "decline" in recent decades is so much more alarming than family decline in the past?
3. Why does his definition of family perhaps overstate the extent of its "decline?"
4. What are some of the potential implications of the changes he describes for family demographers?
5. On what grounds do Stacey and Cowan criticize Popenoe's analysis? Do you find these critiques convincing? How does Popenoe respond? How would you respond if you were in his place?
6. What does Popenoe see as some of the major forces (political, economic, social/cultural) contributing to "family decline?"
7. How does Popenoe define "familism? Where does familism fit into his thesis of family decline?
8. Like Bumpass, Popenoe stresses the importance of feedback mechanisms (e.g., as divorce increases, it becomes more acceptable leading to further increases). This makes a lot of sense, but is extremely difficult to model - what are some possible ways that we might seek to control for diffusion?
9. Popenoe is really saying more or less the same thing that Bumpass says in his PAA address. Why do you think Popenoe takes so much heat for his paper while Bumpass doesn't take any for saying essentially the same thing?
Thornton (2001)
1. What is the developmental paradigm?
2. I think that "reading history sideways" is an extremely well-chosen phrase. What exactly does Thornton mean by this?
3. What does he mean by the term developmental idealism and how does he see this as related to family change such as increasing divorce and declining fertility?
4. Think about recent work you have read - do you recall any examples of "reading history sideways?"
5. Think about the similarities between the life-cycle framework used to study families and individuals (described in Elder paper) and the developmental paradigm used to study larger aggregations.
6. What are some of the potential pitfalls associated with proxying temporal variation with regional variation in cross-sectional data?
7. Many of the conclusions reached by researchers reading history sideways have since been relegated to the status of "myths" (e.g., the "Great family transition" thesis mentioned on page 453). Are there some changes that seem to fit well with a "RHS" approach?
Willis (1987)
1. Based on your reading of this review article, what distinguishes the "economics of the family" (i.e., neoclassical economic approach to studying family behavior) from that of say, demography or sociology?
2. What are the central economic explanations for the well-documented inverse relationship between family income and the number of children? That is, how do economists explain why children do not appear to be a normal good?
3. What are the central elements of the economic explanation of non-marital childbearing, especially the increase therein over the past couple of decades?
4. What are the central elements of the economic theory of divorce?
5. In a nutshell, what is the Easterlin hypothesis?
6. Briefly, what is the economic conceptualization of intergenerational transfers? (Note: We will return to this later in the semester)
7. Willis discussion of explanations for the demographic transition offers an interesting contrast in views/approaches/emphases of demographers and economists. What is the main difference as you see it?