DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37077.v1
title: The Women's Employment Study, Genesee County, Michigan, 1997-2004
title: Version 1

description: The Women's Employment Study, or "WES" combined the insights of poverty researchers, epidemiologists, and social workers by analyzing the ways in which a broad range of labor market, mental health, physical health, and family problems affect a welfare recipient's ability to obtain and retain employment over time. 
WES initially began in the Fall of 1997, and five waves of the survey were completed by early 2004, with a high proportion of the original panel sample retained throughout the study. 
The unique aspects of WES rest largely with the broad range of barriers it measures, and the longitudinal nature of the study that allows researchers to look at employment and welfare experiences over time.
description: A key goal of the study was to examine how the presence of any one of these barriers or combination of barriers affects a recipient's response to new welfare program mandates. The study documented how problems (or the lack thereof) at the time of the interview are correlated with labor market success, continued welfare receipt, or other measures of well-being at subsequent waves. WES explores if and how work and welfare experiences between waves can, conversely, predict changes in a recipient's overall personal employability during the study period.
description: The Survey Research Center of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan conducted the data collection effort. SRC interviewers administered face-to-face standardized interviews using a paper-and-pencil survey instrument. Interviews slightly increased in length over the waves, from approximately 60 minutes to 85 minutes.
Most of the interviews at the first wave of WES were conducted in the Fall of 1997. Waves 2 and 3 were conducted at approximately one-year intervals in the Fall of 1998 and Winter of 1999, respectively. Wave 4 and 5 were collected in the Fall of 2001 and 2003, respectively. At each wave, respondents were followed from the previous wave but no attempt to recontact non-respondents were made.
description: The first type of dataset is the one built directly from the interview questions from the 5 waves. These are datasets 1-5.
A second type of dataset contains created variables that come from the original datasets. Many of the questions in the survey in and of themselves are not useful for analyses-they may be part of a scale that needs to be coded; the mental health sections use standardized coding algorithms to create variables; and the researchers have devised a series of "barriers" to employment measures that are used repeatedly in analyses. These datasets are named by number of the wave the variables were created from (e.g., w4created, w3created). Datasets 6-11 contain the created variables.
A third type are data from the household rosters that are completed prior to the interviews. In each wave, respondents are asked about who lives with them, their relationship, age, etc. The researchers created a few variables (e.g., # of adults in household, number of children in various age categories). One household dataset per wave is created and named by the number of the wave + "hh" (for household)--e.g., w4hh, w3hh. Datasets 12-16 contain the household variables.
There are a number of datasets that are smaller and contain variables related to different topics. For example, there is a dataset named "marriage" that has variables related to marital status and changes between waves; a dataset named "work" that provides information on monthly work status and the percent of months worked across the waves. Also, information on monthly welfare and Food Stamp status from the state, and variables created from this data can be found in the welfare dataset. These data are found in datasets 17 through 27.
description: none
description: Response Rates: Response rates were 86 % for wave 1 (N=753), 92 % for wave 2 (N=693), 91% for wave 3 (N=632), 91% for wave 4 (N=577), and 93% for wave 5 (536).
description: Presence of Common Scales: Likert scales were used in the survey.
description: The sample was systematically drawn with equal probability from an ordered list of the universe of active single mother cases from the FIA. Cases were proportionately selected by zip code, race (White, non-Hispanic or African-American), and age (18-54 years).
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: w1data
DS2: w2data
DS3: w3data
DS4: w4data
DS5: w5data
DS6: w1created
DS7: w2created
DS8: w3created
DS9: w4created
DS10: w5created
DS11: w5created_033105
DS12: w1hh
DS13: w2hh
DS14: w3hh
DS15: w4hh
DS16: w5hh
DS17: barrier
DS18: food
DS19: hardship
DS20: income
DS21: marriage
DS22: race
DS23: subuse
DS24: welfare
DS25: wkwf_change
DS26: wkwf
DS27: work
description: Single parent female headed cases with children who received Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) in an urban Michigan county. Smallest Geographic Unit: none
description: face-to-face interview; paper and pencil interview (PAPI)These data are being released in BETA version to facilitate early access to the study for research purposes. This collection has not been fully processed by ICPSR at this time; the original materials provided by the principal investigator were minimally processed and converted to other file types for ease of use. Please report any data errors or problems to user support and we will work with you to resolve any data issues.Documentation was not provided for dataset 4 (Wave 4 of the data).For more information on the Women's Employment Study, please visit the WES website.