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Making and Spending Money Calendar

Description

Specific Information: Making and Spending Money

The Pathways study has attempted to capture a rich description of each participant's income-generating activities in three realms: legal work, under-the-table work, and illegal activities. Different questions are asked about each type. The topics covered for each are listed below.

Beyond these three realms, the participants are also asked some questions pertaining more broadly to their finances. Specifically, participants are asked to report the sources of their income, level of financial responsibility (e.g., full or partial responsibility), regarding such activities as child care and household bills and the proportion of his/her income (e.g., none, some, all) spent on things such as rent, recreational activities and substance use.

Specific information obtained for regular paying and under-the-table work

The distinction between regular paying jobs and under-the-table jobs was not made until version 01.21 of the interview. As a result, for all cases completed prior to version 01.21, any job reported on the legal work calendar could potentially be an under-the-table job. Starting with version 01.21, a second calendar was introduced to the interview to separate under-the-table work from regular paying jobs.

Participants that held a regular paying job during the recall period were permitted to report up to four different jobs within any given month. Specific information about each job was then obtained.

It is important to realize that variables collected about each type of activity can use different units of analysis. Some questions are asked about specific jobs (which an individual may hold for a very short or very long time), while others are asked about particular months (whether an individual held a job that month). Still other questions characterize the recall period. These individual items are then summarized to reflect income-generating activities in terms of unique jobs, across all jobs, for community jobs only and for institutionally based jobs only during particular periods. The following variables are available. These are variables that a) the participant reports regarding overall job activity during the whole recall period, or b) were calculated by examining the data on the jobs reported.

Specific information obtained for income generated by illegal activity

Participants are also asked if they obtained money doing illegal activities during this period. This calendar is separate from the regular paying/under-the-table calendars and is less detailed.

Additional sections related to this calendar

Additional calendars supplement the employment calendar, specifically, the gainful activity calendar which consolidates school attendance and employment information into a single monthly variable that is intended to indicate positive community adjustment. This can be found under the "Gainful Activity" section of the Calendar codebook.

Descriptive Information: Monthly Data Characterizing the Recall Period

As a standard practice, the specific calendar information will be accompanied by four variables which describe the recall period. This information is important for the user to consider when attempting to use data characterizing the recall period (e.g., measures) in conjunction with the monthly-level calendar data. In addition, this information is useful if the user is viewing events from a developmental perspective. These variables include:

In addition, each dataset includes five variables which describe basic information related to the interview. These are explained in full detail in the "Interview Information" section under "Measures". These variables include the completion status of the interview, the date of the interview, version number in which the interview was conducted, the number of months in the recall period, and the number of days in the recall period.

General Information: Use of monthly life calendar data

Data regarding the participant's self-reported employment is captured using a monthly life-calendar approach (Belli, 1998; Caspi, Moffitt, Thornton, & Freedman, 1996), where the research participant is provided with a visual calendar that contextualizes the recall of research data by anchoring information to salient events. Specifically, individuals are first asked to recount salient events which occurred in the recall period (e.g. birthdays, deaths) and this information remains visible to the participant as an anchor point for the timing of events in each of several life calendar domains. This approach thus creates an integrated view of activities in all of the domains examined, has firm roots in the science of how people remember events and life situations (Bradburn, Rips, and Shevell, 1987; Belli, 1998), and capitalizes on these processes to generate accounts of past events. On a practical level, it provides researchers with a richer set of data points. Instead of simply getting a summary measure of life changes over an extended recall period, the monthly life-calendar places these changes at specific points in time, opening up the possibility of examining sequences of events and potential causal mechanisms within individuals (Fals-Stewart, 2003; Mulvey, et al., 2006).

General Information: Conversion of data to linear months

The monthly Pathways data, in its raw form, is not suited for some kinds of analytic approaches (e.g., trajectory analysis). Each time point interview allows for a maximum of eight or 14 months in the recall period, depending on the follow-up wave (eight months was the maximum for time points 6-36 and 14 was the maximum for time points 48-84). This means that there is a corresponding variable in the dataset reflecting events occurring in each of those months through a maximum of 14 months (the outer limit of any of the possible months covered). If however, the recall period did not include the maximum number of months (as is most often the case), there will be variables with no data. For example, subject 1 has a recall period of five months for follow-up 12 so this means he/she will have data in five monthly variables but not in the remaining nine. Subject 2, has seven months in the recall period for follow-up 12 so he/she will have data in all but seven of the monthly variables. The recall length is set by programming code based on the current date in relationship to the date of the previous interview (see "Interview Information" under Measures for a more detailed description of how the length of the recall period is determined). However, the programming code did permit the interviewer to "reset" by hand the length of the recall period. This was done infrequently, but in some instances it created a situation where we obtained two reports of the same month. For example, follow-up 6 covered months January to June and the interviewer resets the follow-up 12 recall period to start with June (leading to two different reports for the month of June). A series of data cleaning decisions (described in the "Making and Spending Money Calendar Documentation") were implemented to correct these situations but we note them here because they are relevant to the conversion of the data to linear months.

The "linear months" data set-up corrects these two situations. The "linear months" data reformats the variables so that each variable is a sequential representation of life event data for each month of the research participant's life from the baseline interview forward. In this format, variables that were place-markers for months not covered in the recall period are eliminated and situations where there were two reports for the same month are corrected. Thus, "linear month 8" actually represents eight calendar months from the baseline and "linear month 16" is actually 16 months past the baseline interview.

A specific list of variables available in the linear format is provided below. Also provided is a "map" to link the linear month back to the recall period and month in which the information was originally collected. This is important to know when recall-level data is being used in conjunction with the monthly event calendar data.

Data Issues

Items available regarding making and spending money

Regular paying legal jobs and under-the-table work

Because the legal versus under-the-table distinction was not made until a later version, we have computed four versions of each variable at the recall and monthly level. Some are available for all versions of the interview while others are only available for version 01.21 and later.

1) (CU) Community legal, under-the-table. These variables combine regular paying community based jobs reported on the legal work calendar with information reported on the under-the-table calendar. These variables are available for all versions of the interview.

For versions up to 01.20, all variables here were computed using the information obtained on the legal work calendar, so this would include both regular paying legal jobs and under-the-table jobs (since the two types were not distinguished from each other in these earlier versions).

Starting with version 01.21, when the two types of work were separated, all variables combine information from the legal work calendar with that from the under-the-table calendar.

2) (F) Institution only. These variables contain information related to institution jobs reported on the legal work calendar. Note that this includes only regular paying jobs; all under-the-table work is community based. These variables are available for all versions of the interview. The institution job distinction is made in the hand-coded "community or institutionally-based marker" indexed by unique job.

3) (C) Community legal only. These variables contain information exclusively on regular paying legal jobs held in the community, and are available for versions 01.21 and later only, after regular paying jobs were separated from under-the-table work.

4) (U) Under-the-table only. These variables contain information exclusively on under-the-table work reported on the under-the-table calendar, and are available for versions 01.21 and later only.

For an overview and a detailed list of the questions included with this calendar please select the link(s). In addition to providing an overview of the "flow" of the calendar and a detailed listing of the questions, this document notes version issues (i.e. questions/variables that are only present for a sub-sample due to their later addition to the interview) and provides other information that is critical to using and interpreting the data correctly. The table below gives you an overview of issues related to each construct noted above and it also provides you with the page numbers within our detailed document that address each of these constructs. Please be sure to consider this information carefully before moving forward with your analysis.

Click here to download a detailed document in PDF format.

Description of Variable Variable Name Version Change Page Number
By recall period
Legal and Under-the-table
Currently have a regular paying job S#JobNow X 19
Had a paying job in the recall period S#AnyJob X 19
Number of interruptions in income (community-based legal and under-the-table) S#JobCal_TotJInts_CU X 36
Number of interruptions in income (institution only) S#JobCal_TotJInts_F 37
Number of unique jobs (community-based legal and under-the-table) S#JobCal_TotNJobs_CU X 37
Number of unique jobs (institution only) S#JobCal_TotNJobs_F 37
Number of unique jobs (community legal only) S#JobCal_TotNJobs_C X 37
Total number of weeks worked (community-based legal and under-the-table) S#JobCal_TotNWeeks_CU X 37
Total number of weeks worked (institution only) S#JobCal_TotNWeeks_F 38
Total number of weeks worked (community legal only) S#JobCal_TotNWeeks_C X 38
Total number of weeks worked (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_TotNWeeks_U X 38
Total number of hours worked (community-based legal and under-the-table) S#JobCal_TotHours_CU X 38
Total number of hours worked (institution only) S#JobCal_TotHours_F 38
Total number of hours worked (community legal only) S#JobCal_TotHours_C X 38
Total number of hours worked (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_TotHours_U X 38
Total amount of money earned (community-based legal and under-the-table) S#JobCal_TotWages_CU X 39
Total amount of money earned (institution only) S#JobCal_TotWages_F 39
Total amount of money earned (community legal only) S#JobCal_TotWages_C X 39
Total amount of money earned (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_TotWages_U X 39
Weighted average wage (community-based legal and under-the-table) S#JobCal_AvgWages_CU X 39
Weighted average wage (institution only) S#JobCal_AvgWages_F 39
Weighted average wage (community legal only) S#JobCal_AvgWages_C X 39
Weighted average wage (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_AvgWages_U X 40
Illegal Activity
Earned money from illegal activities S#IllegalWork X 43
Number of interruptions in income (illegal activity) S#JobCal_TotJints_I X 46
Total number of weeks worked (illegal activity) S#JobCal_TotWeeks_I X 45
Total amount of money earned (illegal activity) S#JobCal_TotWages_I X 45
Number of months did this type of work (illegal activity) S#JobCal_NMonths_I X 45
General
Currently looking for a job S#JobLk X 47
What has been done to try to find a job S#JobCal_JobSeek_J01 to S#JobCal_JobSeek_J08 X 47
Applied for any jobs in the recall period S#JobQ_JQ01 X 47
Put in application as a condition of probation or parole S#JobQ_JQ10 X 48
Put in application as a condition of welfare/unemployment S#JobQ_JQ11 X 48
Number of jobs applied for S#JobQ_JQ02 X 47
Ever not applied for a job because convinced criminal record would prevent hire S#JobQ_JQ04 X 48
Has this happened in the recall period S#JobQ_JQ09 X 48
Have any sources of income S#JobQ_JQ05 X 48
What are the sources of income S#JobQ_IncomeLegal to S#JobQ_IncomeOther X 48
Proportion of income spent on certain things S#JobQ_alloca to S#JobQ_allocn X 49
Problems and antisocial acts on the job S#JobQ_jproba to S#JobQ_jprobp X 49, 50
Extent of antisocial work behavior (count of items endorsed) S#JobQ_WorkAntisocial_Count X 50
Did any work under-the-table S#JobQ_uecona X 52
Length of time doing this work S#JobQ_ueconc X 52
Frequency of doing this work S#JobQ_uecond X 52
Amount of money made from this work S#JobQ_ueconf X 53
How this work was found S#JobQ_FoundOffBParent to S#JobQ_FoundOffBOther X 53
Length of time earning money illegally S#JobQ_ueconk X 53
Frequency of earning money illegally S#JobQ_ueconl X 54
Total amount of money earned S#JobQ_ueconn X 54
How was illegal work found S#JobQ_FoundIllParent to S#JobQ_FoundIllOther X 54
Current responsibilities S#JobQ_respoa to S#JobQ_respoi X 51, 52
By month
Legal and Under-the-Table
Worked (community legal, under-the-table) S#JobCal_Worked_CU_M## X 30
Worked (institution only) S#JobCal_Worked_F_M## 30
Worked (community legal only) S#JobCal_Worked_C_M## X 30
Worked (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_Worked_U_M## X 27, 31
Unique Job ID (for jobs 1 to 8) S#JobCal_Job##_ID_M## 19, 20
Interruption in income (community legal, under-the-table, and institution) S#JobCal_JInts_FCU_M## 20
Number of unique jobs (community legal, under-the-table) S#JobCal_NJobs_CU_M## X 31
Number of unique jobs (institution only) S#JobCal_NJobs_F_M## 31
Number of unique jobs (community legal only) S#JobCal_NJobs_C_M## X 31
Total number of weeks worked (community legal, under-the-table) S#JobCal_NWeeks_CU_M## X 32
Total number of weeks worked (institution only) S#JobCal_NWeeks_F_M## 32
Total number of weeks worked (community legal only) S#JobCal_NWeeks_C_M## X 32
Total number of weeks worked (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_NWeeks_U_M## X 32
Total number of hours worked (community legal, under-the-table) S#JobCal_TotHours_CU_M## X 32, 33
Total number of hours worked (institution only) S#JobCal_TotHours_F_M## 33
Total number of hours worked (community legal only) S#JobCal_TotHours_C_M## X 33
Total number of hours worked (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_TotHours_U_M## X 33
Hours per week doing under-the-table work S#JobCal_UnderHours_M## X 27
Total amount of money earned (community legal, under-the-table) S#JobCal_TotWages_CU_M## X 34
Total amount of money earned (institution only) S#JobCal_TotWages_F_M## 34
Total amount of money earned (community legal only) S#JobCal_TotWages_C_M## X 34
Total amount of money earned (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_TotWages_U_M## X 34
Hours worked per week (community legal, under-the-table) S#JobCal_HoursPerWeek_Week#_CU_M## X 35
Hours worked per week (institution only) S#JobCal_HoursPerWeek_Week#_F_M## 35, 36
Hours worked per week (community legal only) S#JobCal_HoursPerWeek_Week#_C_M## X 36
Hours worked per week (under-the-table only) S#JobCal_HoursPerWeek_Week#_U_M## X 36
Illegal Activity
Worked (any type of illegal work) S#JobCal_Worked_I_M## X 44
Interruption in income (illegal work only) S#JobCal_JInts_I_M## X 44
Total number of weeks worked (illegal activity) S#JobCal_NWeeks_I_M## X 44
Sold stolen property S#JobCal_Illegal_SoldSt_M## X 43
Sold drugs S#JobCal_Illegal_SoldDr_M## X 43
Stole merchandise S#JobCal_Illegal_Stole_M## X 43
Gambled S#JobCal_Illegal_Gamble_M## X 43
Prostitution S#JobCal_Illegal_Pros_M## X 43
Other type S#JobCal_Illegal_Other_M## X 43
Average Total amount of money earned per week (illegal activity) S#JobCal_Illegal_MoneyPerWeek_M## X 44
Total money earned (illegal activity) S#JobCal_TotWages_I_M## X 45
Data characterizing the recall period
Subject age at each month (truncated) S#SubjAge_M## 57
Subject age at each month (continuous) S#CTSubjAge_M## 57
Community vs. Institution month marker S#CommunityMonth_M## 56
Number of days covered in each month S#NDays## 57
Calendar month linked to each s#m# S#RealDate## 57
By unique job (for jobs 1 to 8)
Unique job ID S#JobCal_Job##_ID 21
Number of months the job was held (before version 01.21) S#JobCal_Job##_NMonths_FCU X 28
Number of months the job was held (01.21 and later) S#JobCal_Job##_NMonths_FC X 29
Number of weeks the job was held (before version 01.21) S#JobCal_Job##_NWeeks_FCU X 29
Number of weeks the job was held (01.21 and later) S#JobCal_Job##_NWeeks_FC X 29
Total number of hours worked (before version 01.21) S#JobCal_Job##_TotHours_FCU X 29
Total number of hours worked (01.21 and later) S#JobCal_Job##_TotHours_FC X 29
Average number of hours worked per week S#JobCal_Job##_PLHour 23
Total amount of money made (before version 01.21) S#JobCal_Job##_TotWages_FCU X 30
Total amount of money made (01.21 and later) S#JobCal_Job##_TotWages_FC X 30
Hourly wage S#JobCal_Job##_PLWage 23
Whether the job was held in the community or in an institution S#JobCal_Job##_FacJob X 21
Job type S#JobCal_Job##_Type X 22
Whether the job involved "regular" or "sporadic" hours S#JobCal_Job##_Regular 23
Whether the job was in the field of a desired career S#JobCal_Job##_Career X 23
Whether the job is part of a job training program S#JobCal_Job##_JobTrain 25
Is the job one you can only have in a residential facility S#JobCal_Job##_PLFac 22
Whether the job is in a business owned by a relative S#JobCal_Job##_Relative X 24
Job stability (i.e. does the job name appear in adjacent calendar months) S#JobCal_Job##_Consec 22
Whether the subject is working at the job at the time of the interview S#JobCal_Job##_Still 24
Reason for leaving the job if it ended in the recall period S#JobCal_Job##_WhyLeft X 24, 25
How the job was found S#JobCal_Job##_HowFound X 23, 24
How long does the subject think they will stay at the current job S#JobCal_Job##_StayLn X 26
Perceived difficulty of finding a job equally as good if the subject left the current job S#JobCal_Job##_FDiff X 26
Benefits provided through the job S#JobCal_Job##_BeneSick to S#JobCal_Job##_BeneNone X 25
Satisfaction with various aspects of the job -- individual items S#JobCal_Job##_SatSal to S#JobCal_Job##_SatWor X 25, 26
Satisfaction -- mean across all individual items S#JobCal_Job##_MeanSatisfaction X 26
Cumulative variables (1yr, 2yr, 3yr, 4yr, 5yr, 6yr, 7yr)
Legal and Under-the-Table
Number of unique jobs (community-based legal and under-the-table) JobCal_Year#_TotNJobs_CU X 41
Number of interruptions in income (community-based legal and under-the-table) JobCal_Year#_TotJInts_CU 42
Total number of weeks worked (community-based legal and under-the-table) JobCal_Year#_NWeeks_CU 40
Total number of hours worked (community-based legal and under-the-table) JobCal_Year#_TotHours_CU 40
Total amount of money earned (community-based legal and under-the-table) JobCal_Year#_TotWages_CU 41
Illegal Activity
Total number of weeks worked (illegal activity) JobCal_Year#_NWeeks_I X 46
Number of interruptions in income (illegal activity) JobCal_Year#_TotJInts_I X 46
General
Has criminal record ever prevented you from getting a job and/or joining the military Work_CriminalRecord X 48
Any friends or family ever earned money from illegal activities Work_FamilyFriendsIllegal X 53
By linear month
Legal and Under-the-Table
Worked (community-based legal and under-the-table) L##JobCal_Worked_CU X 60
Worked (institution only) L##JobCal_Worked_F 60
Worked (community legal only) L##JobCal_Worked_C X 60
Worked (under-the-table only) L##JobCal_Worked_U X 60
Unique Job ID (for jobs 1 to 29) L##JobCal_Job##_ID 58, 59, 60
Interruption in income (community legal, under-the-table, institution) L##JobCal_JInts_FCU 60
Number of unique jobs (community-based legal and under-the-table) L##JobCal_NJobs_CU X 60
Number of unique jobs (institution only) L##JobCal_NJobs_F 60
Number of unique jobs (community legal only) L##JobCal_NJobs_C X 60
Total number of weeks worked (community-based legal and under-the-table) L##JobCal_NWeeks_CU X 60
Total number of weeks worked (institution only) L##JobCal_NWeeks_F 60
Total number of weeks worked (community legal only) L##JobCal_NWeeks_C X 60
Total number of weeks worked (under-the-table only) L##JobCal_NWeeks_U X 60
Total number of hours worked (community-based legal and under-the-table) L##JobCal_TotHours_CU X 60
Total number of hours worked (institution only) L##JobCal_TotHours_F 60
Total number of hours worked (community legal only) L##JobCal_TotHours_C X 60
Total number of hours worked (under-the-table only) L##JobCal_TotHours_U X 60
Hours per week doing under-the-table work L##JobCal_UnderHours X 60
Total amount of money earned (community-based legal and under-the-table) L##JobCal_TotWages_CU X 60
Total amount of money earned (institution only) L##JobCal_TotWages_F 60
Total amount of money earned (community legal only) L##JobCal_TotWages_C X 60
Total amount of money earned (under-the-table only) L##JobCal_TotWages_U X 60
Hours worked per week (community-based legal and under-the-table) L##JobCal_HoursPerWeek_weekx_CU X 61
Hours worked per week (institution only) L##JobCal_HoursPerWeek_weekx_F 60
Hours worked per week (community legal only) L##JobCal_HoursPerWeek_weekx_C X 61
Hours worked per week (under-the-table only) L##JobCal_HoursPerWeek_weekx_U X 61
Illegal Activity
Worked (illegal activity) L##JobCal_Worked_I X 61
Interruption in income (illegal activity) L##JobCal_JInts_I X 61
Total number of weeks worked (illegal activity) L##JobCal_NWeeks_I X 61
Sold stolen property L##JobCal_Illegal_SoldSt X 61
Sold drugs L##JobCal_Illegal_SoldDr X 61
Stole merchandise L##JobCal_Illegal_Stole X 61
Gambled L##JobCal_Illegal_Gamble X 61
Prostitution L##JobCal_Illegal_Prostitute X 61
Other type L##JobCal_Illegal_Other X 61
Average Total amount of money earned per week L##JobCal_MoneyPerWeek X 61
Amount of money made from all illegal activities L##JobCal_TotWages_I X 61
Data characterizing the recall period
Subject age at each month (truncated) L##SubjAge 61
Subject age at each month (continuous) L##CTSubjAge 61
Community vs. Institution month marker L##CommunityMonth 61
Number of days covered in each month L##NDays 61
Calendar month linked to each s#m# L##RealDate 61
Recall period month (s#m#) mapped to linear month number ## L##TpMo 61, 62
Additional sections supplement this calendar. Refer to the codebook section for each listing for more information
Interview Information -- contains variables that describe basic information related to the interview, such as interview completion status, interview date, version, and number of months and days covered by the recall period. This can be found under the "Interview Information" section of the Measures codebook.
Gainful Activity -- a construct that consolidates school attendance and employment information into a single monthly variable that is intended to indicate positive community adjustment. This can be found under the "Gainful Activity" section of the Calendar codebook.

References