A Different Shade of Gray: Midlife and Beyond in the Inner City, 1995-1996

Participants were Dominican, Puerto Rican, and African American men and women from Harlem, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, New York City. They ranged in age from twenty-five to seventy-four, the bulk being between forty-one and sixty-eight years of age. About two-thirds of the sample completed high school as their highest level of education and ten percent held bachelor's degrees.

Focused life-history interviews were administered face-to-face for a period of approximately three hours, and were tape-recorded. Topics covered included migration history; employment; education of the respondent and family members; attitudes towards welfare, opportunity and race relations; visions of middle age; and health and well-being. Participants also completed questionnaires assessing health, education, household information, neighborhood experience and services, employment history and status, network characteristics and basic demographics.

The Murray Archive holds additional analogue materials for this study. If you would like to access this material, please apply to use the data.