Volume 49 - Article 5 | Pages 83–108  

Estimation of confidence intervals for decompositions and other complex demographic estimators

By Arun Hendi

Abstract

Background: While the use of standard errors and confidence intervals is common in regression-based studies in the population sciences, it is far less common in studies using formal demographic measures and methods, including demographic decompositions.

Objective: This article describes and provides explicit instructions for using four different approaches for computing standard errors for complex demographic estimators.

Methods: Standard errors for Arriaga’s decomposition of life expectancy differences are computed using the delta method, the Poisson bootstrap, the binomial bootstrap, and the Monte Carlo approaches. The methods are demonstrated using a 50% sample of vital statistics data on age-specific mortality among urban women in the Pacific region of the United States in 1990 and 2019.

Results: All four methods for computing standard errors returned similar estimates, with the delta method, Poisson bootstrap, and Monte Carlo approaches being the most consistent. The Monte Carlo approach is recommended for general use, while the delta method is recommended for specific cases.

Contribution: This study documents multiple ways of estimating statistical uncertainty for complex demographic estimators and describes in detail how to apply these various methods to nearly any rate-based demographic measure. It also provides advice on when the use of standard errors is and is not appropriate in demographic studies. Explicit formulae for computing standard errors for Arriaga’s decomposition using the delta method approach are derived.

Author’s Affiliation

• Arun Hendi - Princeton University, United States of America EMAIL

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Uncovering the underlying causes for the narrowing, stalling, and widening Black–White mortality gap from 2000 to 2022 in the United States
Volume 52 - Article 18    | Keywords: cause of death, decomposition, mortality trends, racial disparities, United States of America, years of life lost (YLL)

Open science practices in demographic research: An appraisal
Volume 50 - Article 43    | Keywords: demography, open access data, population studies, replicability, reproducibility

Uncovering disability-free grandparenthood in Italy between 1998 and 2016 using gender-specific decomposition
Volume 50 - Article 42    | Keywords: aging, decomposition, disability, grandparenthood, Italy

Decomposition analysis of disparities in infant mortality rates across 27 US states
Volume 50 - Article 40    | Keywords: decomposition, health disparities, infant mortality, United States of America

Racial classification as a multistate process
Volume 50 - Article 17    | Keywords: Brazil, demography, increments to life, life expectancy, life table, mortality, multistate, race/ethnicity