IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v77y2022i9p1661-1673..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Validity and Reliability of Retrospective Measures of Childhood Socioeconomic Status in the Health and Retirement Study: Evidence From the 1940 U.S. Census
[Family origins and the schooling process: Early versus late influence of parental characteristics]

Author

Listed:
  • John Robert Warren
  • Mark Lee
  • Theresa L Osypuk

Abstract

ObjectivesRetrospective measures of childhood socioeconomic status (SES) in cohort studies of aging that first observe people late in life—such as the Health and Retirement Study (HRS)—are widely used. However, their measurement validity and reliability are unknown. We assess the reliability and validity of the HRS’s retrospective measures of parental education and childhood family finances.MethodsWe use records for 6,343 HRS sample members who were children in 1940 that have been linked to records from the complete-count 1940 U.S. Census. We assess interrater reliability by comparing (a) retrospective reports of childhood SES collected from sample members in the 1992–2018 HRS to (b) prospective measures of parallel concepts collected from HRS sample members’ parents in the 1940 Census. We assess predictive validity by comparing the results of analyses that model later-life outcomes as a function of childhood SES as measured both prospectively and retrospectively.ResultsInterrater reliabilities of retrospective measures of parental education are high; however, the same is not true of the retrospective measure of childhood family finances. Both retrospective and prospective measures of childhood SES are predictive of later-life outcomes, and with similar strengths and directions of associations for most outcomes.DiscussionResearchers who rely on retrospective indicators of childhood SES from the HRS should be aware of their measurement properties. They are measured with error, and that error modestly attenuates estimates of their associations with later-life outcomes. However, prospective and retrospective measures of childhood SES have similar predictive validity. These findings should reassure researchers who rely on retrospective measures of childhood SES in the HRS and similarly designed surveys.

Suggested Citation

  • John Robert Warren & Mark Lee & Theresa L Osypuk, 2022. "The Validity and Reliability of Retrospective Measures of Childhood Socioeconomic Status in the Health and Retirement Study: Evidence From the 1940 U.S. Census [Family origins and the schooling pro," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 77(9), pages 1661-1673.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:77:y:2022:i:9:p:1661-1673.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbac045
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:77:y:2022:i:9:p:1661-1673.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.