Relationship‐Based Selective Participation of Secondary Respondents in a German Multi‐Actor Panel Study

Abstract

This study investigates the extent to which participation of secondary respondents (SRs), here mothers, in a multi-actor study is cross-sectionally and longitudinally biased regarding relationship characteristics with the primary respondent (PR) of the same study. Background: Family research emphasizes the importance of analyzing family relations over time and from the perspectives of several family members. Following the leverage-salience theory, selective (re-)participation of PRs and SRs might bias a sample toward certain relationship characteristics, in particular over time.

Linked in Life and Death: A Note on the Effect of Parental Death on Sibling Relations in Young and Middle Adulthood

“…We thus had to rely on one respondent’s assessment of her or his relationship to multiple siblings (also see Kalmijn & Leopold, 2019). However, as the participation of secondary respondents in multi-actor studies tends to be relatively low and biased towards more positive relationships (e.g., Hünteler & Wetzel, 2020), employing a survey design including direct interviews with siblings would not have been without its own problems.…”