Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

———, and Mark A. Fine 1993 ‘‘The Relation between Family Structure and Young Adolescents’ Appraisals of Family Climate and Parenting Behavior.’’ Journal of Family Issues 14:279–290.

Wineberg, Howard 1990 ‘‘Childbearing after Remarriage.’’

Journal of Marriage and the Family 52:31–38.

J. JILL SUITOR

MacDonald, William L., and Alfred DeMaris 1995 ‘‘Remarriage, Stepchildren, and Marital Conflict: Challenges to the Incomplete Institutionalization Hypothesis.’’ Journal of Marriage and the Family 57:387–398.

Martin, Teresa Castro, and Larry Bumpass 1989 ‘‘Recent Trends in Marital Disruption.’’ Demography 26:37–51.

Monk-Turner, Elizabeth, and Garland White 1995 ‘‘Factors Shaping the Probability of Divorce and Early Remarriage among Young Men.’’ International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 32:97–105.

Sullivan, Oriel 1997 ‘‘The Division of Housework among ‘Remarried’ Couples.’’ Journal of Family Issues 18:205–223.

Sweeney, Megan M. 1997 ‘‘Remarriage of Women and Men after Divorce.’’ Journal of Family Issues 18:479–502.

Sweet, James A., and Larry L. Bumpass 1988 American Families and Households. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

U.S. Bureau of the Census 1997 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1997. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

——— 1998 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1998. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Vemer, Elizabeth, Marilyn Coleman, Lawrence H. Ganong, and Harris Cooper 1989 ‘‘Marital Satisfaction in Remarriage: A Meta-Analysis.’’ Journal of Marriage and the Family 51:713–725.

White, Lynn K. 1994 ‘‘Coresidence and Leaving Home: Young Adults and Their Parents.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 20:81–102.

———, and Alan Booth 1985 ‘‘The Quality and Stability of Remarriages: The Role of Stepchildren.’’ American Sociological Review 50:689–698.

White, Lynn K., and Agnes Riedman 1992 ‘‘When the Brady Bunch Grows Up: Step/Halfand Full-Sibling Relationships in Adulthood.’’ Journal of Marriage and the Family 54:197–208.

Wilson, Barbara Foley 1989 ‘‘Remarriages and Subsequent Divorces’’ National Vital Statistics, series 21, no. 45. Hyattsville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics.

REPLICATION

Philosophers have long identified replication as an important facilitator of scientific progress. Several terms have been used to denote the ability to assess past work through replication, including ‘‘intersubjective testability,’’ ‘‘reliability,’’ and ‘‘verifiability by repetition.’’ Authors of scientific papers typically describe the methods and materials they used in their research so that, at least hypothetically, others can repeat the work and reproduce the reported results. Successful replication of their own and others’ work gives researchers confidence in its validity and reassures them about the fruitfulness of the general line of inquiry they are following. In contrast, inability to replicate one’s own or others’ results casts doubt upon the validity of the previous work. Critics argue that because sociologists infrequently attempt to replicate findings, they are both less able to identify valid lines of inquiry and more likely to follow spurious ones.

One can identify a continuum ranging from exact to weakly approximate replication. The former, also called repetition, consists of attempts to use the same materials and procedures as previous research to determine whether the same results can be obtained. Approximate replication, on the other hand, consists of using some but not all of the conditions of a previous study. By systematically varying research conditions in a series of approximate replications, it may be possible to determine the precise nature of a previous study’s results and the extent to which they also hold for different populations and situations (Aronson et al. 1998). Researchers usually value successful approximate replication more than successful exact replication because the latter contributes less to existing knowledge.

In the natural sciences, experimentalists are usually expected to carry out successful exact replications of their own work before submitting it for

publication. This reduces the likelihood of reporting spurious results and of misleading one’s colleagues. Exact replications of others’ research are often difficult and costly to execute, however, and natural scientists rarely attempt them except in cases where the original work is theoretically important or has high potential practical value, or where there is suspicion of fraud. Another disincentive for carrying out exact replications of already published work is that such work is usually difficult to publish. This is true not only because little new knowledge results from an exact replication, but also because the meaning of a failure to replicate exactly is often ambiguous. Failures can indicate that the original work was flawed, but they may also be due to inadequate specification of research procedures, the existence of a stochastic element in the production of results, or errors in the replication itself (Harry M. Collins 1985). By contrast, approximate replications, especially those involving the modification of research instruments and their application to new areas of inquiry, are common in the natural sciences, and this has led some to identify them as constituting a central element of ‘‘rapid-discovery, high-consensus science’’ (Randall Collins 1994).

Many hold that social scientists’ opportunities to carry out replications, especially exact replications, are severely limited. This is partly because social scientists often use nonexperimental research techniques that are difficult to repeat exactly. In addition, changing social and historical contexts can influence studies’ results. As a result, failures to obtain the same results as reported by previous studies are even more ambiguous in the social sciences than in the natural sciences (Schuman and Presser 1981). This ambiguity may account for social scientists’ continued interest in concepts and theories stemming from studies whose results have repeatedly failed to be replicated (e.g., sex differences in fear of success and patterns of moral development).

Nevertheless, critics have long argued that behavioral scientists need to attempt more replications of previous research because their dependence on statistical inference produces many spurious reports of ‘‘statistically significant’’ results. Statistical inference allows researchers only to reject or fail to reject a null hypothesis. Each of these

two outcomes is subject to error due to the probabilistic nature of statistical hypothesis testing; sometimes researchers reject null hypotheses that are actually true (type one error), and sometimes they fail to reject null hypotheses that are actually false (type two error). However, failure to reject a null hypothesis does not justify accepting it, and studies that do not yield rejections therefore are often judged as contributing little. As a result, scholarly journals tend to publish only papers that report the rejection of null hypotheses, some of which are the result of type one errors (Sterling 1959). Furthermore, to ensure that they will be able to reject null hypotheses, researchers sometimes use inappropriate analytic procedures that maximize their chances of obtaining statistically significant results (Selvin and Stuart 1966), increasing the likelihood that published findings are due to type one errors. To counteract these patterns, some have argued that behavioral science editors should set aside space in their journals for the publication of replication attempts, and to publish studies that fail to replicate earlier results even when the replications themselves fail to reject null hypotheses.

Despite the calls for increased replication, behavioral science journals publish few papers reporting replication attempts. In an early examination of this issue, Sterling (1959) reported that among 362 articles in psychology journals, 97 percent of those reporting a test of significance rejected the null hypothesis, but that none was an explicit replication. Ironically, many have replicated Sterling’s results (cf. Dickersin 1990; Gaston 1979; Reid et al. 1981). These studies probably underestimate the prevalence of replication, because they do not count papers reporting a set of experiments that comprise both an original result and one or more approximate replications of it. By not encouraging more replication, however, behavioral science journals may foster elaborate and vacuous theorizing at the expense of identifying factual puzzles that deserve theoretical analysis (Cook and Campbell 1979, p. 25).

Although the traditional view of replication entails the collection of new data—including data on additional cases or additional measures—statis- ticians and social scientists have suggested alternative replication strategies. One is to build replication into a study from the start. For example, a researcher can draw a sample large enough to allow its random partition into two subsamples.

Data from one subsample can then be used to check conclusions drawn on the basis of analyses of data from the other. Another approach, requiring the intensive use of computing resources, is to draw multiple random subsamples from already collected data and then use these subsamples to crossvalidate results (Finifter 1972). This general strategy, which includes such techniques as ‘‘jackknifing’’ and ‘‘bootstrapping,’’ is also used to assess sampling variances for complex sampling designs (see Sampling Procedures). Still another elaboration of the basic idea of replication is the general approach called meta-analysis. Here the analyst treats previous studies on a topic or relationship as a sample of approximate replications. By statistically analyzing whether and how studies’ results vary, one can determine how generalizable a finding is and the extent to which differences in study design account for variation in results (Hunter and Schmidt 1990). Finally, replication may also be fostered by the increased availability of alreadycollected data sets stemming from the establishment of data depositories, and funding agency requirements that data from supported projects be made accessible to other researchers. Access to previously collected data makes it possible to carry out both exact replications of previous analyses and approximate replications that alter the analytic procedures used by the original researcher.

(SEE ALSO: Sampling Procedures)

REFERENCES

Aronson, Elliot, Timothy D. Wilson, and Marilynn B. Brewer 1998 ‘‘Experimentation in Social Psychology.’’ In Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, and Gardner Lindzey, eds., Handbook of Social Psychology, 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Collins, Harry M. 1985 Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. London: Sage.

Collins, Randall 1994 ‘‘Why the Social Sciences Won’t Become High-Consensus, Rapid-Discovery Science.’’

Sociological Forum 9:155–177.

Cook, Thomas D., and Donald T. Campbell 1979 QuasiExperimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Studies. Chicago: Rand-McNally.

Dickersin, Kay 1990 ‘‘The Existence of Publication Bias and Risk Factors for Its Occurence.’’ Journal of the American Medical Association 263:1385–1389.

Finifter, Bernard M. 1972 ‘‘The Generation of Confidence: Evaluating Research Findings by Random

Subsample Replication.’’ In Herbert L. Costner, ed.,

Sociological Methodology 1972. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Gaston, Jerry 1979 ‘‘The Big Three and the Status of Sociology.’’ Contemporary Sociology 8:789–793.

Hunter, John E., and Frank L. Schmidt 1990 Methods of Meta-Analysis. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.

Reid, L. H., L. C. Soley, and R. D. Rimmer 1981 ‘‘Replications in Advertising Research: 1977, 1978, 1979.’’

Journal of Advertising 10:3–13.

Schuman, Howard, and Stanley Presser 1981 ‘‘Mysteries of Replication and Non-Replication.’’ In Howard Schuman and Stanley Presser, eds. Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys. New York: Academic Press.

Selvin, Hannan C., and Alan Stuart 1966 ‘‘Data-Dredg- ing Procedures in Survey Analysis.’’ American Statistician 20:20–23.

Sterling, Theodore D. 1959 ‘‘Publication Decisions and Their Possible Effects on Inferences Drawn from Tests of Significance—Or Visa Versa.’’ Journal of the American Statistical Association 54:30–34.

LOWELL L. HARGENS

RESEARCH FUNDING IN SOCIOLOGY

IMPORTANCE OF EXTERNAL FUNDING

Jesse Unruh, a well-known twentieth-century politician in California, is alleged to have said, ‘‘Money is the mother’s milk of politics.’’ Observers at the century’s close may have made similarly accurate comments about the importance of money in the conduct of research. Natural scientists (including those in fields ranging from basic biomedical science to space exploration) have traditionally depended on funds beyond the internal resources of the organizations at which they are employed. Major discoveries in the natural sciences would be unthinkable without funding for particle accelerators, field expeditions, and clinical research staffs. Social scientists and particularly sociologists may be moving toward similar dependence on funding from beyond the boundaries of their universities and institutes. Such resources appear crucial for truly significant investigations, at least those which require original empirical data.

Sponsorship citation in the leading sociology journals in 1997 and 1998 provides an indication of the importance of external research support to

sociologists. Volume 62 (1997) of the American Sociological Review (ASR) contains 55 articles. In 31 of these articles (56 percent), the authors cite sources of funding outside their home organizations. An additional 3 authors, all university based, cite internal sources of support (such as university research committees), which presumably grant awards through a competitive proposal process.

American Journal of Sociology (AJS), volume 103 (1997 and 1998), contains 27 articles; 9 of these cite funding sources, 6 (22 percent) of which are clearly outside agencies or internal units distributing funds obtained from outside. At century’s end, external research funding appeared to be a frequent if not ubiquitous part of the research process in sociology.

Review of research published a generation ago presents a similar picture. Volume 42 of ASR (1977) contains 59 articles, 23 (39 percent) of which cite outside funding sources. An additional 4 authors cite funding sources internal to their institutions. Volume 83 of the AJS (1977 and 1978) includes 38 articles, of which 24 (63 percent) cite funding from sources outside the authors’ universities, institutes, or agencies. An additional 3 AJS articles cite internal sources.

SOURCES OF FUNDING

Sources named in the above-cited AJS and ASR volumes provide an indication of where sociologists obtain research funds. Among the articles published in 1997 and 1998 that cite external funding, a plurality (17 citations) named the National Science Foundation (NSF) as the sole or primary source of support. The second most frequently cited source was the National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD), with three citations, followed by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), with two citations. One article cited the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the remainder acknowledged a variety of private funders, such as the Ford, Rockefeller, and Guggenheim foundations.

Among 1977 and 1978 journal articles that cited external funding, the National Science Foundation (NSF) received the most frequent acknowledgement (16 citations), followed by NIMH (eight citations), the Office of Economic Opportunity (four citations), the Ford Foundation (four citations), the National Institute of Education (two

citations), and the Russell Sage Foundation (two citations). An assortment of federal agencies and private foundation received one citation each, including the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Labor (DOL), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the Grant and Guggenheim foundations.

Comparison of funding patterns in ASR and AJS across the decades carries some risk. These journals do not necessarily represent the most important work of general sociology and may not reflect patterns of support (or its absence) in subdisciplines, such as medical sociology and sociology of religion. Conventions and habits prevailing among authors regarding citation of funding sources may have changed between the 1970s and the 1990s, but inspection of acknowledgements in the articles cited above suggests that external funding of major sociological research remained as common a phenomenon in the late 1990s, when 43 percent of ASR and AJS articles cited external funding, as it was in the late 1970s, when 47 percent of ASR and AJS articles acknowledged such support. Funding of the research leading to these articles depended somewhat more on public agency support in the late 1970s than in the late 1990s. About 80 percent of the above-referenced 1977 and 1978 ASR and AJS articles which acknowledged external funding cited public sources and 20 percent cited private sources. About 71 percent of comparable ASR and AJS articles in 1997 and 1998 acknowledged public funding, 29 percent citing private sources.

STRUCTURE AND OPERATION OF FUNDING ORGANIZATIONS

Public and private sources of research funding comprise different social worlds. Representatives of each evaluate research proposals according to different rules and criteria. These differences derive from the distinct institutional surroundings of public agencies and private organizations.

Public Funding Organizations. Procedures followed by the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) illustrate the processes by which public research funding takes place and the organizational components which facilitate these processes. The PHS, a subunit of the Department of Health and Human

Services (DHHS), houses a large number of agencies making research grants. These include several of the sources cited in the above-mentioned AJS and ASR volumes, such as the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute of Aging (NIA) and the National Institute of Child Health and Disease (NICHD). Other PHS subunits such the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) have funded significant sociological work, principally in the fields of organizational and medical sociology. It appears likely that other governmental funding organizations, such as NSF, operate in a manner similar to these PHS units.

The institutional background and functioning of AHCPR provide a paradigm applicable to all federal funding organizations. Federal legislation established AHCPR through the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989 (AHCPR 1992). The legislation authorizes the secretary of DHHS to undertake ‘‘research, demonstration, and evaluation activities’’ regarding delivery of health services in the United States. The AHCPR administrator acts as operational head of the agency and derives his or her authority via delegation from the secretary of DHHS. By statute, the administrator is advised by the National Advisory Council for Health Care Policy, Research, and Evaluation. The council recommends priority areas for research funding. In addition, it provides ‘‘secondary review’’ of grant proposals. All PHS awarding organizations have a similar administrative structure and advisory council.

The council’s composition is mandated to include seventeen public (nonfederal) members who have voting power. These are primarily scientifically qualified individuals. The council also includes health practitioners; individuals drawn from business, ethics, law, and policy; and consumer representatives. In addition, the council includes seven federal officials with voting power, appointed to serve ex officio.

Of key importance in the process of research funding by AHCPR and analogous groups is the Initial Review Group (IRG), sometimes referenced as the ‘‘scientific review group’’ or ‘‘study section.’’ As mandated by statute, the IRG advises the secretary of DHHS on the scientific and technical merit of research grant applications within AHCPR’s areas of responsibility. The AHCPR administrator

officially invites individuals selected for IRG membership to join. Selection is made with assistance from the Office of Scientific Review (OSR), the administrative body within the agency with responsibility for organizing the review of applications for grant support and reporting IRG findings to the AHCPR administrator. Normally, IRG members are appointed to overlapping fouryear terms.

Official criteria for IRG membership include scientific expertise in areas of concern to the agency, often indicated by a history of receiving funds under the agency’s jurisdiction. IRG members cannot be employees of the federal government. In 1992, AHCPR operated four IRGs, each covering a different specialty area or agency concern. Agencies such as AHCPR occasionally appoint special panels to evaluate proposals obtained in response to Requests for Applications (RFAs) issued to solicit interest in new or unusual areas of scientific concern.

The IRG meets three times each year, a few months after regularly scheduled deadlines for submission of grant applications. An official of the Office of Scientific Review, known as the Scientific Review administrator, in consultation with the IRG chair, assigns committee members the task of reviewing each application received by the agency. For each application, the Scientific Review administrator appoints a primary reviewer and at least two secondary reviewers.

At IRG meetings, primary and secondary reviewers present evaluations of the scientific merit of the proposals which they have been assigned. Discussion then takes place among all members of the IRG. The chair then requests a recommendation from the primary reviewer to assign a ‘‘priority score’’ to the proposal, defer discussion, or remove the proposal from further consideration. Priority scores are assigned ranging from 1.0 (most meritorious) to 5.0 (least meritorious). Following the reviewers’ reports and ensuing discussion, all voting members of the IRG formulate priority scores according to their own judgment and submit them to the chair. Composite priority scores and summaries of the IRG’s findings regarding scientific merit are reported to the council and the grant applicant.

The agency establishes a ‘‘pay line’’ indicating the priority score below which proposals are likely

to receive funding. In the late 1990s, pay lines varied between priority scores of 1.80 and 2.20, criteria stringent in comparison with the early 1970s, when pay lines were often in the 300s. Strictly speaking, the findings of the IRG are advisory to the council and ultimately to the secretary. Rarely, the council or a high official may elect to fund a proposal ‘‘out of priority’’ due to extraordinary merit or urgent public need.

Government research organizations such as AHCPR review all grant applications that are complete and received on time. In a mid-1992 funding cycle, IRGs (including all those of AHCPR, the National Institute of Health [NIH], and related agencies) reviewed 8,017 applications (NIH Division of Research Grants 1993). Three such cycles occur annually. IRGs usually award priority scores resulting in funding of between 10 and 20 percent of the applications they review. Structure and procedures at the National Science Foundation appear somewhat simpler but similar in form to those of the PHS. Proposals are reviewed by technical staff (an NSF program officer) with the aid of outside reviewers. Final award decisions are made at the senior management level.

Private Funding Organizations. If review of funding sources cited in ASR and AJS provides a valid indication, most nongovernment funding for sociological research comes from private foundations. None of the journal articles acknowledge funding from corporations, which are major sources of research support in some fields, such as engineering and pharmacy.

A private foundation is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization with funds from a permanent portfolio of investments known as an endowment. Typically, an endowment originates from a single source, such as an individual, a family, or a corporation. Legally, foundations are chartered to maintain or aid social, educational, religious, or other charitable activities serving the common good. They are owned by trustees who hold the foundation’s assets ‘‘in trust’’ for the people of the jurisdiction in which they are chartered. Governance is carried out by a board of directors. Trustees usually sit on boards of directors, but directors are not always trustees. Foundations of significant size employ staff to recommend policy, evaluate applications for funding, and perform day-to-day administrative tasks.

Like federal agencies, private foundations identify areas of interest and disseminate this information to the grant-seeking community. New interests and areas of emphasis emerge periodically through initiation by staff or discussion among directors and trustees. Large foundations such as Robert Wood Johnson and W. K. Kellogg seem to change their areas of emphasis approximately every decade or upon accession of a new president. Foundations often develop initiatives articulating interests focused on specific concerns and issue program announcements and RFAs in these areas.

The process of evaluating grant requests appears considerably less formal in private foundations than it is in government. Typically, foundations advise potential grant applicants to submit short letters of interest as a first step. Typically, lower-level staff read these letters, screening them for conformity with the foundation’s interests, credibility of the prospective applicant, and such nonstandard criteria for consideration as the foundation might maintain. Letters that pass this screening process are transmitted to higher-level staff, which may ask the applicant for a detailed proposal. Some foundations assemble review panels and hire outside consultants to evaluate proposals of a technical nature. More typically, though, foundation officials discuss full-scale proposals among themselves and formulate recommendations to the governing board, which makes final award decisions.

The percentage of letters of interest which result in eventual funding is quite low. Most letters of inquiry generate a notice of rejection via form letter. Likelihood of funding appears roughly comparable with federal sources. In 1999, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Web site advised potential applicants that their chances of success were 1 in 20. In the 1990s, this foundation operated an investigator program in health policy. Each year, this program received over 400 letters of inquiry and awarded no more than 10 grants.

Some features of the private foundation’s informality appear advantageous to applicants. Federal grant application forms are extremely long and detailed, requiring significant effort for completion. Foundation forms tend to be simpler. Many foundations require no standard form. Generally, though, federal agencies provide larger

amounts of money to grantees than private foundations. In the late 1900s, for example, few Ford Foundation grants exceeded $100,000. Several AHCPR awards approached $1 million. Generous overhead recovery rates provided by federal grants are attractive to university officials. Many private foundations severely restrict overhead payments or allow no such funds in grantee budgets.

THE POLITICS OF RESEARCH FUNDING

The bureaucratic structure of public funding organizations clearly aims at promoting accountability and fairness. Legally, much of the grant award process is visible to the public. All successful grant applications may be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. IRG deliberations, the venue in which key funding decisions take place, tend to be conscientiously conducted discussions in the manner of serious graduate-level seminars.

Key features of the operation of agencies such as AHCPR, though, raise questions about the degree to which awards are made strictly according to scientific merit. Deliberations of the Scientific Review Administrator and the agency administrator which result in IRG membership selection are subject to the same uncertainty as all dyadic interactions. Disciplinary bias, partiality to particular questions and approaches, and personal ties may affect IRG membership appointments. IRG membership, of course, strongly affects the agency’s funding pattern.

Assignment of primary review responsibilities by the Scientific Review administrator and the IRG chair can also have a profound effect on funding decisions. Positively or negatively biased assignment of the primary reviewer responsibility can determine favorable versus unfavorable outcome. Although all IRG members are expected to read all applications, only the primary and secondary reviewers are expected to do so in detail. IRG members look to these individuals for guidance in their determination of priority scores. Given the competitiveness of funding, most applications have no chance of receiving priority scores below the pay line without strong support by their primary reviewers. In a sense, the primary reviewer must function as an advocate for the applicant. Officials

prejudiced against a particular investigator or approach could ensure selection of a primary reviewer who shared their negative inclination.

Advocacy plays a role of similar importance in private foundation funding. Communication with a foundation official is a virtual necessity prior to submission of a letter of interest. Established relations with these officials is necessary to avoid the screening process that eliminates most grant-seek- ers and to promote favorable action at each step in the decision-making process.

REFERENCES

National Institute of Health, Division of Research Grants 1993 Grant Application Statistics. NIH Peer Review Notes, (February), p. 8.

Agency for Health Care Policy and Research 1992 Orientation Handbook for Members of AHCPR Review Groups. Rockville, Md.: Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.

HOWARD P. GREENWALD

RESEARCH METHODS

See Case Studies; Comparative-Historical Sociology; Ethnomethodology; Ethnography; Evaluation Research; Qualitative Methods; Survey Research; Statistical Methods.

RETIREMENT

Retirement is primarily a twentieth-century phenomenon that developed through a convergence of public and private employment policies, a restructuring of the life span relative to work activity, and a redefinition of the terms of monetary compensation for work performed. It may be tempting to view retirement as the ‘‘natural’’ development of a social institution matched to the needs of older people experiencing declines in capacity; but the invention of a distinctive nonemployment status called retirement was not simply a response to human aging. Rather, in reconciling a transformed economy to an aging population with an increasing amount of surplus labor, an explicit policy of job distribution was produced. Retirement policies incorporated age as a characteristic that served

as both a qualifying and an exclusionary principle for work and income. The fact that these policies were age-based can be linked to the social production of age as a predictor of individual capacity and potential, a production that had ideological roots in the science and larger culture of the time.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

Whereas retirement contracts existed in both Europe and colonial America, Plakans (1989) argues that preindustrial retirement was a gradual transition. The head of a household transferred legal title to an heir in exchange for some combination of monetary payments, material provisions, and services as stipulated by the aged person or couple. These contracts were typical of agrarian economies in which land was the main factor in production; they represented the final step in a long and sometimes elaborate process of property transfer. These ‘‘stepping-down’’ practices were therefore most immediately linked to inheritance patterns; they could be used to ensure that family control of the land was maintained (Sorensen 1989).

Between 1790 and 1820, American legislatures introduced policies of mandatory retirement for certain categories of pubic officials. By the late 1800s, the majority of businesses still had no formal policies of fixed-age retirement. Instead, informal policies eliminated older workers from the labor force (Fischer 1977). This decline in the demand for older workers can be linked to changes in the structure of American capitalism. During the late 1800s the structure of American capitalism began to change from small-producer, competitive capitalism to large-scale corporate capitalism (Sklar 1988). Part of this reconstruction involved attempts to rationalize age relations in the workplace, a process that was embedded in a more general disenchantment with older workers and a devaluation of their skills. Indeed, the employment rates for men aged 65 and older showed a steady decline during this period, from 80.6 percent in 1870 to 60.2 percent in 1920 (Graebner 1980). According to Graebner’s analysis, retirement became the impersonal and egalitarian method adopted by both public and private employers for dealing with superannuated workers. It allowed employers to routinize the dismissal of older workers, thereby restructuring the age composition of their workforces in a way they believed

would enhance efficiency, a belief supported by the principles of scientific management. Pension plans legitimized this process and, at the same time, served as an effective labor control device.

The first pension plan (1875) is credited to the American Express Company, but benefits were restricted to permanently incapacitated workers who were at least 65 years old with a minimum of 20 years of service (Schulz 1976). In 1920, the first general piece of retirement legislation, the Civil Service Retirement Act, provided pension coverage for federal civilian employees. One year later, the Revenue Act of 1921 encouraged businesses to implement private plans by exempting both the income of pension and profit-sharing trusts and the employer contributions to these trusts from income tax liability. Nevertheless, coverage remained concentrated in a few industries, and 85 percent of the workforce continued to be without pension coverage.

By the 1930s, the problem of superannuated workers was coupled with the more general problem of managing surplus labor. The changing technology of the workplace helped transform the labor process. A subsequent increase in worker productivity and the growing recognition of the cyclical crises inherent in industrial capitalism broadened the concern beyond that of simple superannuation to that of job distribution and consumption capacity.

The Depression of the 1930s greatly exacerbated the growing problem of old-age poverty and unemployment. By 1935 unemployment rates among those 65 and older were well over 50 percent. Even those with pension benefits did not escape poverty; trade union plans were collapsing, and state and local governments were reducing or discontinuing pension payments (Olsen 1982). Legislative proposals for alleviating some of these problems included the Townsend Plan and the Lundeen Bill. The Townsend Plan proposed a flat $200 monthly pension for older Americans; recipients had to spend the pension within thirty days. The Lundeen Bill proposed benefits at the level of prevailing local wages for all unemployed workers aged 18 and older (including the elderly) until suitable employment was located. Neither of these plans was directly related to a retirement transition. The Townsend Plan granted equal benefits to all nonemployed persons over age 60. The Lundeen

Bill focused more on job creation for workers of all ages than on limiting labor supply through age exclusions.

In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed the Committee on Economic Security (CES) to develop legislation to address the problems of oldage poverty and unemployment. The Social Security Act of 1935 offered a solution that based benefits on the level of workers’ contributions to a general trust fund. Upon their retirement, covered workers (primarily those in manufacturing) could draw retirement benefits, assuming they met the age and work eligibility requirements.

For the CES, retirement referred to complete withdrawal from the labor force. As stated by Barbara Armstrong, an original member of the CES, ‘‘[r]etirement means that you’ve stopped working for pay.’’ According to Armstrong, the option facing the Roosevelt administration pitted older workers against younger workers (Graebner 1980, p. 186). Retirement would reduce unemployment by moving older workers out of the labor force, allowing industries characterized by surplus labor to transfer jobs from older to younger workers. The federal government could facilitate this process by shifting the focus of older workers’ financial dependency from the wage contract to a federal income maintenance program. In that sense, the Social Security Act of 1935 established what was primarily a program of old-age relief; its limited coverage and low benefit levels precluded its serving as an effective instrument of retirement. However, in establishing a measure of income support for retired older workers, the act reinforced the view that in the competition for jobs, age was a legitimate criterion, and youth had the ‘‘higher claim’’ (Graebner 1980). Ironically, the mobilization for World War II created job opportunities for older workers, as it did for women. Even though these opportunities proved temporary, they challenged the connection between retirement and superannuation, a connection that was asserted more emphatically when the supply of labor exceeded the demand.

During the next several decades, considerable growth in private pension plans occurred; coverage increased from 4 million workers in the late 1930s to 10 million workers in 1950 and 20 million workers in 1960. The expansion was spurred by a

number of factors including the desire of firms to encourage loyalty and reduce turnover, favorable tax treatment, and the 1949 Supreme Court decision to uphold a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling that pensions were appropriate issues of negotiation through collective bargaining (Schulz 1976). During this same period, Social Security coverage was extended to more workers, and Congress continued to raise benefits in response to changes in the cost of living, although real benefit levels remained relatively low (Derthick 1979).

DECLINING RATES OF LABOR-FORCE

PARTICIPATION

Early research on retirement was centrally concerned with the question of voluntarism in the retirement transition, as well as with the financial, social, and psychological consequences of leaving the labor force. Even though the expansion of both government and employer-based pensions had improved the economic situation of older people in retirement, poverty rates among the elderly were still high. By 1960, 35.2 percent of persons aged 65 and older were below the poverty line, compared with 22.4 percent of the general population. Poverty was the norm for older white women and older African Americans (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1987).

During the 1950s, the Social Security Administration began studying the characteristics of newly entitled beneficiaries. Initial reports stated that early retirement occurred primarily because of poor health and difficulties finding and keeping jobs; the availability of Social Security retirement benefits played a secondary role (Wentworth 1945; Stecker 1955). Although these studies relied on beneficiary-reported reasons for retirement, a measurement strategy that was criticized because of its susceptibility to social desirability bias, the findings cannot be totally discounted. Retirement in the 1950s was not a financially attractive status for many older workers. Given that retirement income programs offered ‘‘fixed’’ benefits (benefits that remained nominally the same but, with inflation, declined in real terms), the financial security of middleand working-class retirees was in jeopardy.

During the 1950s, retirement became more common. Insurance companies led the way in

developing ‘‘retirement preparation’’ programs, as researchers attempted to define strategies for ‘‘successful aging.’’ In an era of postwar prosperity, retirement came to be viewed as a ‘‘period of potential enjoyment and creative experience which accrues as a social reward for a life-time of labor’’ (Donahue et al. 1960, p. 361). Researchers investigating the effect of retirement on life satisfaction found that ‘‘retirement does not cause a sudden deterioration in psychological health as [had] been asserted by other writers’’ (Streib and Schneider 1971, p. 161). Rather than rejecting retirement, advocacy groups for the elderly lobbied for improved conditions of retirement, including more generous pension benefits. Mandatory retirement had not yet become an issue. Instead, the trend was in the direction of earlier retirement, that is, before the age of 65. In 1956 women and in 1962 men were allowed to retire at age 62 by accepting actuarially reduced Social Security benefits.

During the mid-1960s, in the context of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, the issue of old-age poverty was again addressed. In the Older Americans Act of 1965, Congress established a ‘‘new social contract for the aged’’ (Achenbaum 1983, p. 85) by specifying a series of objectives that, if met, would significantly improve the quality of life enjoyed by older people. Among these objectives was an ‘‘equal opportunity to the full and free enjoyment of . . . an adequate income in retirement in accordance with the American standard of living

. . . [and] retirement in health, honor, and dignity’’ (U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 1976, p. 2).

Richard Nixon’s presidency inaugurated the era of modern retirement. Whereas previous amendments to the Social Security Act had brought more and more workers into the system, they had not significantly improved the level of retirement benefits (Munnell 1977). The presumption that Social Security benefits should serve as retirement income supplements rather than as the primary source of income had not been challenged. But the persistently high rates of old-age poverty lent credence to the charge that benefits were inadequate. During the decade following passage of the Older Americans Act, benefits were increased five times and indexed to changes in the consumer price index. Both the ‘‘real’’ level of benefits and

the replacement rate of benefits to previous earnings were improved. Enhanced retirement benefits allowed workers to maintain their standard of living across the retirement transition and helped redefine retirement as a legitimate nonwork status that average-income workers could afford to enter voluntarily. During the 1970s, employer-sponsored pensions were also being reorganized. The 1974 passage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) regularized vesting plans and provided workers with some protection against benefit loss. Private sector initiatives aimed at inducing early retirement were also increasingly common (Barfield and Morgan 1969). Until the 1970s, workers choosing early retirement virtually always accepted reduced benefits. During the 1970s, however, employers began to offer early retirement incentive plans. Not only did these plans pay benefits at younger ages, but the present value of the benefits often exceeded that of normal retirement benefits.

The parallel changes in labor-force participation rates and in poverty rates among the elderly are noteworthy. In the latter part of this century, labor-force participation rates at older ages declined significantly. During the 1970s, rates for men aged 55–64 dropped from 83 percent (1970) to 75.6 percent (1975) to 72.1 percent (1980) (U.S. Department of Labor 1983). In addition, at the beginning of the decade, 24.6 percent of those aged 65 and older were living below the poverty line, twice the 12.1 percent that characterized the general population. By the end of the decade, the poverty rate among the elderly had dropped to 15.2 percent, compared to an overall poverty rate of 11.7.

As Figure 1 illustrates, the changes in laborforce participation rates (derived from the Current Population Survey) differ by both age and gender. Rates for men and women aged 65 and older appear to have stabilized and perhaps marginally increased from their lowest point. Rates for men aged 55–59 and 60–64 show overall declines with recent hints of a slight upturn. In contrast, rates for women in these age ranges have steadily increased during the last quarter-century, with rates for women in their late fifties surpassing rates for men in their early sixties during the last decade.