Catherine P. Montalto, The Ohio State University
When a mixed-sex couple (married or living as partners) is interviewed for the Survey of Consumer Finances, the actual respondent who is interviewed may be either the woman or the man. However, in the data files for mixed-sex couples, the information coded as "respondent" refers to the male regardless of which spouse was interviewed. Thus, in mixed-sex couples the respondent will always be male, however the person who was interviewed and thus provided the information could be either male or female.
There is information in variable X8000 in the 1995 SCF which indicates whether or not this respondent "switch" occurred. The following information is taken from the description of variable X8000 in the 1995 SCF Codebook:
"Original respondent and spouse/partner variables reversed. The person referred to as the "head" in this codebook is either the male in a mixed-sex couple or the older individual in a same-sex couple. Where X8000=1 all variables in the dataset that originally referred to the "respondent" and "spouse/partner" and all codes that contain the same references have been reversed. This change is made for convenience in processing the data and indicates no judgement whatsoever about the arrangements of individual families."
The SCF contains many opinion and attitude questions. Some of these questions specifically ask what the individual thinks (i.e. X302 Five years from now, do you think interest rates will be higher, lower, or about the same as today?) Some of these questions are phrased in terms of the family for multiple person households (i.e. X3006 What are your family's most important reasons for saving?) And for persons who are married or living with a partner, some of the questions specifically ask about the "unit" (i.e. X3014 Which of the following statements on this page comes closest to the amount of financial risk you and your husband/wife/partner are willing to take when you save or make investments?")
Researchers interested in gender differences in behavior must take into consideration the structure of the SCF data as well as the way in which questions are asked in order to obtain clean gender effects. If you are identifying sex of the respondent from variable X8021 this will always be (1) male in mixed-sex couples due to the procedure followed to code the variables in the public dataset, regardless of which spouse/partner was interviewed. Additionally, questions phrased in terms of the "family" or which explicitly ask about "you and your husband/wife/partner" may not represent purely the attitude or opinion of the individual being interviewed.
In the 1995 SCF, variable X8000 is equal to (1) in 1,251 cases indicating the original respondent and spouse/partner variables were reversed (1,130 of these cases are for married couples, and 112 cases are for persons living as partners).1
1Information based on the first implicate of the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances.