Are reports of divorce and widowhood consistent when collected prospectively versus retrospectively?

• In Event: Aging and the Life Course Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 14: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Aging

Abstract

Demographers and social scientists have long been interested in the accuracy of reports people make about their relationship histories. Retrospective reports of relationship biographies are frequently used because collecting prospective survey data over decades is time consuming and expensive. This study examines the consistency of retrospective and prospective reports about divorces and widowhoods across adulthood. We use novel data from an adaptation of the SHARELIFE retrospective life history (RLH) interview – the ACLLIFE interview – that was collected in 2021 from respondents of the long running Americans’ Changing Lives (ACL) longitudinal study (1986-2019). Preliminary results show that reporting inconsistencies about ever experiencing either divorce or widowhood are relatively rare for both event types (5.4% and 3.3%, respectively). However, reporting inconsistency is greater when considering a sample made up of each individual dissolution event and demanding more detail - the timing of the event - particularly for divorces. In a sample of divorce events, 7.7% can be classified as a mismatch on calendar year, 5.7% as a mismatch of denial (reported this event prospectively but not retrospectively), and 4.7% as a case of an emergent event (did not report the divorce prospectively but did retrospectively). By contrast, a sample of widowhood events shows 1.1% of reports inconsistent due to timing mismatch, 2.1% denials, and 1.7% emergent events. Multivariable analyses show that inconsistent reports are prevalent for all types of inconsistency and for both divorce and widowhood, but that inconsistency is more common when reporting on divorces. Some sociodemographic characteristics (i.e., female sex, Black race, and cognitive impairment) make inconsistent reports more likely, largely for divorce denial compared with denial of widowhood, but in a majority of comparisons, inconsistent reporting is similar across groups and types of marital dissolution.

Authors

• Sarah Burgard, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

• David Yang, University of Michigan

• Cayley Ryan-Claytor, University of Michigan

• Janet Wang, University of Michigan

• Lucie Kalousova, Vanderbilt University