Recovering event histories by cubic spline interpolation

If event history data are recorded in discrete intervals of time, errors are introduced when the data are converted from the unit in which they were recorded, such as date, to another unit such as age or duration. The problem is illustrated by the inconsistent age at marriage schedules published by two recent U.S. censuses. This paper develops a general method for treating problems of this type using cubic spline interpolation. The method is used to adjust U.S. age at marriage schedules, explaining a substantial part of the discrepancy in the 1960 and 1970 censuses.     

Hutterite fecundability by age and parity: Strategies for frailty modeling of event histories

Effective fecundability declines with age and parity. Furthermore, women differ in their effective fecundability: some women have persistently low or high monthly chances of live-birth conception. Estimates are presented concerning the magnitude of these effects in a natural-fertility population: 406 Hutterite women in North America who had 3,206 births, largely in the 1940s and 1950s. The estimates are based on models that incorporate the effects of persistent heterogeneity and that use the full information provided by multiple-spell duration data. In addition, hazards rather than probabilities are modeled, piecewise linear hazard functions are used, and age and parity effects are decomposed systematically. These methods permit the development of more elaborate models of changing fecundability and of heterogeneity in postpartum amenorrhea.     

被压缩后的年龄组人口数据的恢复

在实际中,我们得到的往往是压缩后的年龄组人口数据,但研究应用时,却需要完全的年龄数据。如何从压缩的数据中恢复完全的年龄数据?这在人口统计分析中不但经常碰到,也是颇为棘手的问题。本文首先介绍了两种常用的数据恢复方法,在此基础上,提出了改进的模式插值法。与前两种方法比较,模式插值法具有效率高,应用范围广的特点。最后,本文就1982年现役军人的年龄数据恢复进行了探讨。     

Estimating intercensal age schedules by intracohort interpolation

"This paper describes a procedure for estimating intercensal age schedules of rates of occurrence of demographic events (birth, death, marriage) from tabulations at two points in time of a status of the population (average children ever born, persons surviving, proportion ever married) classified by age." The procedure is called iterative intracohort interpolation. The paper describes a more general version than that originally developed by Ansley J. Coale and provides a probabilistic interpretation of the age-specific rates estimated by the procedure.