Abstract
As more longitudinal surveys collect information on sexual orientation, evaluating the quality of these data and understanding how sexual minorities engage with the survey process are increasingly important endeavors. This study constitutes the first systematic analysis of sexual orientation as a predictor of attrition from longitudinal surveys. Drawing upon the minority stress model, we developed testable hypotheses about how sexual identity and sexual identity change relate to panel attrition. These hypotheses were subsequently tested using data from two national cohorts of Australian women from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (one born 1973–1978, n = 11,262, and one born 1989–1995, n = 16,689). In the older cohort, sexual minority women were more likely to attrit from the survey than exclusively heterosexual women—largely due to noncontact rather than noncooperation. The associations faded once sociodemographic and health-related covariates were included in the models. Further, higher rates of noncontact were observed among women who changed their sexual identity in a more same-sex-oriented direction, compared to women with a stable sexual identity. None of these associations were apparent in the younger cohort. Taken together, our results suggest that sexual minority status may be a risk factor for panel attrition among older but not younger cohorts of women and that improved efforts to locate and contact participants who are generally vulnerable could increase the retention of sexual minorities in longitudinal studies. Effect sizes were nevertheless small, suggesting that existing research on sexual orientation using longitudinal surveys is unlikely to be biased by non-random attrition of non-heterosexual individuals.
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Notes
Unfortunately, the ALSWH only collected data on sexual attraction and behavior from the 1989–1995 cohort in 2017 (Wave 5). Our analyses of these data by sexual identity produced results consistent with expectations from prior research: The majority of mainly heterosexual women (86%) reported being attracted mostly to males but sometimes to females, while 9.5% said they were attracted only to males. In comparison, 89% of exclusively heterosexual women said they were attracted only to males. Likewise, just over half of the mainly heterosexual women reported having had at least one female sexual partner, compared to 13% of exclusively heterosexual women and 80% of bisexual women.
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Acknowledgements
The research on which this paper is based was conducted as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health by the University of Queensland and the University of Newcastle. We are grateful to the Australian Government Department of Health for funding and to the women who provided the survey data. This research was partially supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Project Number CE140100027) and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award for a project titled “Sexual Orientation and Life Chances in Contemporary Australia”. The authors would like to thank Walter Forrest for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and Gita Mishra, David Fitzgerald and the ALSWH team for their assistance
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This research was partially funded by the Australian Research Council (Grant Numbers CE140100027 and DE170100218) and an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.
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Campbell, A., Perales, F. & Baxter, J. Sexual Minority Women in Longitudinal Survey Research: Is Attrition a Problem?. Arch Sex Behav 49, 1443–1461 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01669-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01669-z