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This paper uses data from more than 700 felony trials in Florida to examine the role of age in jury selection and trial outcomes. The results imply that prosecutors are more likely to use their peremptory challenges to exclude younger members of the jury pool, while defense attorneys exclude older potential jurors. To examine the causal impact of age, we employ a research design that isolates the effect of the random variation in the age composition of the pool of eligible jurors called for jury duty. Consistent with the jury selection patterns, the empirical evidence implies that older jurors are significantly more likely to convict. Results are robust to controls for county, time, and judge fixed effects. Thus, many cases are decided differently for reasons that are completely independent of the nature of the evidence in the case--that is, there is substantial randomness in the application of criminal justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recently developed hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) models, inferential questions arise: How can one assess or judge the significance of estimates of individual cohort and period effects in such models? And how does one assess the overall statistical significance of the cohort and/or the period effects? Beyond statistical significance is the question of substantive significance. This paper addresses these questions. In the context of empirical applications of linear and generalized linear mixed-model specifications of HAPC models using data on verbal test scores and voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections, respectively, we describe a two-step approach and a set of guidelines for assessing statistical significance. The guidelines include assessments of patterns of effects and statistical tests both for the effects of individual cohorts and time periods as well as for entire sets of cohorts and periods. The empirical applications show strong evidence that trends in verbal test scores are primarily cohort driven, while voter turnout is primarily a period phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the relationship between birth certificates and child labor laws in the U.S. from the 1870s through the 1930s, including efforts of labor reformers to have employers use age to regulate youth employment. An overview of parents' perspectives on their children's ages, including in regard to their lack of documentation of their children's birth dates, is provided. The role that the U.S. census played in maintaining records on age and birth dates is discussed.

Inspired by Sandra Bem and subsequent theorists, we examine gender as a multidimensional construct that differs across adulthood to test claims made by two different theories of life-span gender development-that men and women cross over and become more like the other gender with age, and that aging involves degendering or viewing gender as a less central aspect of the self. Self-report survey data from a U.S. sample of men and women recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (25-89 years, M age = 47.38, SD = 14.05) were used to investigate the extent to which stereotypically masculine traits; stereotypically feminine traits; androgyny; gender identification (i.e., identifying with one's gender group and viewing this as a positive part of the self); and gender typicality (i.e., viewing oneself as a typical member of one's gender group) differ between younger (i.e., under age 40), middle-aged (i.e., ages 40-59), and older men and women (i.e., age 60 and older) and by marital status. Results indicate that gender differences in stereotypically masculine and feminine personality traits exist, and that marital status moderates age and gender differences in traits. Among older men, those who are married are more likely to endorse stereotypically masculine traits, but also have higher androgyny scores than unmarried men. With age, both men and women perceive themselves as more typical examples of their gender group. Results are discussed as providing limited support for crossover theory, but not degendering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homophily, the tendency for similar actors to be connected at a higher rate than dissimilar actors, is a pervasive social fact. In this article, we examine changes over a 20-year period in two types of homophily—the actual level of contact between people in different social categories and the level of contact relative to chance. We use data from the 1985 and 2004 General Social Surveys to ask whether the strengths of five social distinctions—sex, race/ethnicity, religious affiliation, age, and education—changed over the past two decades in core discussion networks. Changes in the actual level of homophily are driven by the demographic composition of the United States. As the nation has become more diverse, cross-category contacts in race/ethnicity and religion have increased. After describing the raw homophily rates, we develop a case-control model to assess homophily relative to chance mixing. We find decreasing rates of homophily for gender but stability for race and age, although the young are increasingly isolated from older cohorts outside of the family. We also find some weak evidence for increasing educational and religious homophily. These relational trends may be explained by changes in demographic heterogeneity, institutional segregation, economic inequality, and symbolic boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The religiosity of scientists is a persistent topic of interest and debate among both popular and academic commentators. Researchers look to this population as a case study for understanding the intellectual tensions between religion and science and the possible secularizing effects of education. There is little systematic study, however, of religious belief and identity among academic scientists at elite institutions, leaving a lacuna of knowledge in this area. This absence of data exists at a time when the intersection between religion and science is reaching heightened public attention. Especially with increased tensions surrounding teaching evolution in the public schools, understanding what kind of resources scientists have (particularly in terms of their own religious beliefs and practices) to transmit science to a broader religiously-motivated public is crucial. Using data from a recent survey of academic scientists at twenty-one elite U.S. research universities, we compare the religious beliefs and practices of natural and social scientists within seven disciplines as well as academic scientists to the general population. We find that field-specific and interdisciplinary differences are not as significant in predicting religiosity as other research suggests. Instead, demographic factors such as age, marital status, and presence of children in the household are the strongest predictors of religious difference among scientists. In particular, religiosity in the home as a child is the most important predictor of present religiosity among this group of scientists. We discuss the relevance these findings have for understanding issues related to current theory and public debate about the intersection between religion and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]