Jiwon Lee’s research while affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and other places

The linear dependence of age, period, and birth cohort is a challenge for the analysis of social change. With either repeated cross-sectional data or conventional panel data, raw change cannot be decomposed into over-time differences that are attributable to the effects of common experiences of alternative birth cohorts, features of the periods under observation, and the cumulation of lifecourse aging. This article proposes a rolling panel model for cohort, period, and aging effects, suggested by and tuned to the treble panel data collected for the General Social Survey from 2006 through 2014. While the model does not offer a general solution for the identification of the classical age-period-cohort accounting model, it yields warranted interpretations under plausible assumptions that are reasonable for many outcomes of interest. In particular, if aging effects can be assumed to be invariant over the course of an observation interval, and if separate panel samples of the full age distribution overlap within the same observation interval, then period and aging effects can be parameterized and interpreted separately, adjusted for cohort differences that pulse through the same observation interval. The estimated cohort effects during the observation interval are then interpretable as effects during the observation interval of entangled period and cumulated aging differences from before the observation interval.

The linear dependence of age, period, and birth cohort is a challenge for the analysis of social change. With either repeated cross-sectional data or conventional panel data, raw change cannot be decomposed into over-time differences that are attributable to the effects of common experiences of alternative birth cohorts, features of the periods under observation, and the cumulation of lifecourse aging. This article proposes a rolling panel model for cohort, period, and aging effects, suggested by and tuned to the treble panel data collected for the General Social Survey (GSS) from 2006 through 2014. While the model does not offer a general solution for the identification of the classical age-period-cohort (APC) accounting model, it yields warranted interpretations under plausible assumptions that are reasonable for many outcomes of interest. In particular, if aging effects can be assumed to be invariant over the course of an observation interval, and if separate panel samples of the full age distribution overlap within the same observation interval, then period and aging effects can be parameterized and interpreted separately, adjusted for cohort differences that pulse through the same observation interval. The estimated cohort effects during the observation interval are then interpretable as effects during the observation interval of entangled period and cumulated aging differences from before the observation interval.

After an explanation of the structure of the 2006-2014 rolling panel of the General Social Survey (GSS), this report details models that estimate six sets of alternative predicted probabilities of attrition for all baseline sample members. The report then explains the cross-sectional GSS weights distributed with the data, and it shows how the estimated probabilities of attrition can be used to specify panel weights that adjust for attrition. Alternative approaches are discussed in conclusion. Code and data are provided in the associated repository.

Through an analysis of validated voters in the 2016 American National Election Study, this article considers the voters who supported Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. More than 5.7 million in total, Obama-to-Trump voters were crucial to Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. They were more likely to be white, working class, and resident in the Midwest. They had lower levels of political interest, were centrist in both party affiliation and ideology, and were late deciders for the 2016 election. On economic interests, they were centrists, except for trade policy, which they viewed, on average, as a greater threat than other voters. They claimed to have more experience with economic vulnerability than Democratic loyalists of comparable social standing. On racial attitudes, including the racialized economic topic of immigration, they had a profile similar to Republican loyalists. While their support of Trump may be attributable to surging white nativism, this article argues for an alternative explanation. Voters who were attracted by Trump’s economic populism only joined his coalition if they could accept his racialized rhetoric. As a result, the Trump bandwagon predominantly attracted generically bigoted voters with racial attitudes similar to Republican loyalists.

Through an analysis of validated voters in the 2016 American National Election Study, this article considers the voters who supported Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. More than 5.7 million in total, Obama-to-Trump voters were essential to Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. They were more likely to be white, working class, and resident in the Midwest. They had lower levels of political interest, were centrist in both party affiliation and ideology, and were late deciders for the 2016 election. On economic interests, they were centrists, except for trade policy, which they viewed, on average, as a greater threat than other voters. They claimed to have more experience with economic vulnerability than Democratic loyalists of comparable social standing. On racial attitudes, including the racialized economic topic of immigration, they had a profile similar to Republican loyalists. While their support of Trump may be attributable to surging white nativism, this article argues for an alternative explanation. Voters who were attracted by Trump’s economic populism only joined his coalition if they could accept his racialized rhetoric. As a result, the Trump bandwagon predominantly attracted generically bigoted voters with racial attitudes similar to Republican loyalists.

To evaluate the claim that white working-class voters were a crucial block of support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, this article offers two sets of results. First, self-reports of presidential votes in 2012 and 2016 from the American National Election Studies show that Obama-to-Trump voters and 2012 eligible nonvoters composed a substantial share of Trump’s 2016 voters and were disproportionately likely to be members of the white working class. Second, when county vote tallies in 2012 and 2016 are merged with the public-use microdata samples of the 2012-to-2016 American Community Surveys, areal variations across 1,142 geographic units that sensibly partition the United States show that Trump’s gains in 2016 above Romney’s performance in 2012 are strongly related to the proportion of the voting population in each area that was white and working class. Taken together, these results support the claim that Trump’s appeal to the white working class was crucial for his victory.

To evaluate the claim that white, working-class voters were a crucial block of support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, this article offers two sets of results. For the first, self-reports of presidential vote in 2012 and 2016 from the American National Election Studies (ANES) show that Obama-to-Trump voters and 2012 eligible non-voters composed a substantial share of Trump's 2016 voters. These voters were also more likely to be members of the white working class. Because the ANES has a somewhat coarse occupation-based measure of the working class, and has only a modest sample size, a complementary analysis is offered that merges county vote tallies in 2012 and 2016 with the public-use microdata samples of the 2012-2016 American Community Surveys. For this second piece of analysis, areal variation across 1,142 geographic units that sensibly partition the United States shows that Trump's gains in 2016 above Romney's performance in 2012 are strongly related to the proportion of the voting population in each area that is white and working class. This strong relationship holds in the six states that Trump flipped in his 2016 victory, and it varies little across other agglomerations of competitive and non-competitive states. Taken together, these results support the claim that Trump's appeal to the white working class was crucial for his victory.

Through an analysis of the 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 Current Population Surveys as well as the 2004 through 2016 General Social Surveys, this article investigates class differences and patterns of voter turnout for the last four U.S. presidential elections. After developing some support for the claim that a surge of white, working-class voters emerged in competitive states in 2016, a portrait of class differences on political matters among white, non-Hispanic, eligible voters between 2004 and 2016 is offered to assess the electoral consequences of this surge. These latter results are consistent with the claim that racial prejudice, anti-immigrant sentiment, concerns about economic security, and frustration with government responsiveness may have led many white, working-class voters to support an outsider candidate who campaigned on these themes. However, these same results give no support to the related claim that the white working class changed its positions on these matters in response to the 2016 primary election campaign or in the months just before the general election.

Through an analysis of the 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 Current Population Surveys, as well as the 2004 through 2016 General Social Surveys, this article investigates class differences and patterns of voter turnout for the last four US presidential elections. After developing some support for the claim that a surge of white working-class voters emerged in competitive states in 2016, a portrait of class differences on political matters among white non-Hispanic eligible voters between 2004 and 2016 is offered to consider the consequences of this compositional shift. These latter results are consistent with the claim that racial prejudice, anti-immigrant sentiment, concerns about economic security, and frustration with government responsiveness may have led many white working-class voters to support an outsider candidate who campaigned on these themes. However, these same results give no support to the related claim that the white working class changed its positions on these matters in response to the 2016 primary election campaign or in the months just before the general election.

Through an analysis of the 1994 through 2016 General Social Surveys, this article demonstrates that a substantial proportion of eligible voters within the working class turned away from solid identification with either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party during the Obama presidency. Even before the 2016 election cycle commenced, conditions were uncharacteristically propitious for a Republican candidate who could appeal to prospective voters in the working class, especially those who had not voted in recent presidential elections but could be mobilized to vote. These findings support the contested position that variation in party identification is a genuine leading indicator of electoral outcomes and perhaps also, in this case, of party realignment.