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GSS Longitudinal Opinion Data
Government & Civic Records
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About
This collection provides detailed insights into US public opinion regarding abortion, captured by the General Social Survey (GSS) spanning nearly five decades. It tracks attitudes from 1972 through 2018. This material is particularly designed as a learning resource, suitable for teaching statistical inference to college students. Key applications include illustrating mixed effects modelling, performing basic regression analysis using various demographic and political covariates, and conducting time-series analysis to observe how attitudes toward abortion have shifted across different eras.
Columns
The data frame contains 64,814 observations across 18 variables:
- id: A unique identifier assigned to each respondent.
- year: The specific year the survey was conducted.
- age: The respondent's age, recorded in years.
- race: The respondent’s race, provided as a character variable (e.g., White, Black).
- sex: The respondent’s gender, provided as a character variable (Female, Male).
- hispaniccat: The respondent’s Hispanic ethnicity, provided as a character variable.
- educ: The total number of years the respondent spent in school.
- partyid: The respondent’s initial party identification, a character variable.
- relactiv: The self-reported level of religious activity, measured on a scale from 1 to 11.
- abany: A binary variable; 1 indicates support for legal abortion for any reason, 0 indicates no support.
- abdefect: A numeric vector; 1 indicates support for legal abortion if the fetus has a serious defect, 0 indicates no support.
- abnomore: A numeric vector; 1 indicates support if the woman wants no more children, 0 indicates no support.
- abhlth: A numeric vector; 1 indicates support if the woman’s health is in danger, 0 indicates no support.
- abpoor: A numeric vector; 1 indicates support if the woman is poor and cannot afford more children, 0 indicates no support.
- abrape: A numeric vector; 1 indicates support if the pregnancy resulted from rape, 0 indicates no support.
- absingle: A numeric vector; 1 indicates support if the woman is single and does not wish to marry the impregnating man, 0 indicates no support.
- pid: A recoded version of partyid, where 7 is treated as missing data (NA).
- hispanic: A dummy variable; 1 indicates the respondent identifies as Hispanic in any way.
Distribution
This collection is structured as a data frame comprising 64,814 records. While the file format is typically CSV, users should be mindful that the details section confirms the presence of missing data within the variables. The file,
gss_abortion.csv, has a size of 5.38 MB.Usage
The data is an exceptional resource for conducting research and educational exercises in statistical inference. It is suitable for illustrating complex models such as mixed effects modelling (equivalent to a one-parameter Rasch model). It allows researchers to perform basic regressions by incorporating various demographic and political covariates. Furthermore, the dataset enables powerful time-series analysis to track shifts in American attitudes toward abortion over time.
Coverage
The data encompasses all General Social Survey observations for the included variables within the United States. The temporal scope is extensive, running from 1972 through to 2018. Demographic coverage is broad, including variables such as age, race, gender, education level, and political party affiliation.
License
CC0: Public Domain
Who Can Use It
Intended users include college students learning statistical techniques, social scientists researching long-term changes in public opinion, political analysts interested in how party identification correlates with social issues, and educators seeking realistic data examples for statistical modelling and inference.
Dataset Name Suggestions
- US Abortion Opinion Trends (1972–2018)
- General Social Survey: Abortion Attitudes
- GSS Longitudinal Opinion Data
Attributes
Original Data Source: GSS Longitudinal Opinion Data
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