Response to Notes Regarding the 2006 Survey of Active Duty Spouses

In: Armed forces & society, Volume 39, Issue 1, p. 184-188

Abstract

The Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) of the US Department of Defense conducted a survey of active duty spouses in 2006. In Notes Regarding the 2006 Survey of Active Duty Spouses, Willard C. Losinger suggests that "Severe problems existed with the sampling, weight adjustments, and estimation (including variance-estimation) procedures." DMDC's review of these claims has revealed that Losinger used a preliminary data set with incorrect weighting variables to conduct his analyses. This data set was not used in any of DMDC's published results. Therefore, the article's claims about the quality of DMDC's published data and survey methods lack the necessary empirical support to be useful in improving the DMDC survey program.