78991 - Demography and Survival Analysis

Learning outcomes

The student will be able to manage statistical and demographic tools to apply the most known techniques in survival analysis. More specifically, the student will be able to calculate and read the cohort and period survival tables, to estimate survival curves using non-parametric estimation techniques, to evaluate the consequences of medium and short term components of demographic evolutions and regimes, to analyse individual and biographical data with a cohort approach.

Course contents

Topics studies in Demography.
Basic concepts of demographic and health studies.
Population structure
- age pyramids
- Compositional indexes age and gender,
- Employment status indexes
Dynamic analysis of a population.
- The population equation
- Demographic balance and crude rates
- Growth rates (arithmetic, geometric, continuous),
- Doubling time
Generic rates of mortality, birth rate, immigration and emigration.
Net mortality, fertility, immigration and emigration rates.
Standardization methods
Lexis diagram
- Period and cohort analysis.
Fertility measures
- Total fertility rate
- parity rates, average birth age,
Fertility and mortality in history
- The demographic transition
- Decreasing returns and population growth, Malthusian circuits,
Sanitary and epidemiological transition
- Evolution of causes of death
- Pandemics
- Years lived in good health and earnings in life expectancy.
- Differential mortality: by cause and level of education.
Ageing
- Fragility and functional decline, not self-sufficiency.
- Silver Economy
The second demographic transition: family dissolution and new family models
Generations: definitions and changes in the transition to adulthood
migration
- The evolution of the phenomenon in Italy, link with the demographic changes of the non-migrant population.
- Characteristics of the population, regularizations.
- Italian migration abroad
Demographic forecasts, projections, scenarios.
- Demographic inertia
- Demographic policies
The mortality table and biometric functions.
Introduction to the analysis of survival data:
- censoring and truncation.
- Estimation of the survivorship functions with non-parametric methods: Kaplan-Meier product-limit and life table methods.
- Hazard function: definition and estimate. Relationship between hazard, survivorship and density functions in survival data analysis.
- Comparison of survivorship functions: log-rank and Wilcoxon rank-sum test.
- Semiparametric Cox regression model: definition, assumptions, estimation and hypothesis tests; interpretation of estimated

Readings/Bibliography

Notes of the lectures will be available through the IOL site.
General references, particularly useful for students not attending lessons:
G.C. Blangiardo, Elementi di demografia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1997
M. Livi Bacci A Concise History of World Population. Wiley-Blackwell.
D. W. Hosmer, S. Lemeshow. Applied Survival Analysis: Regression Modeling of Time to Event Data, Wiley, New York, 1999.
Blossfeld, H., K. Golsch, and G. Rohwer. 2007. Event History Analysis with Stata. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Teaching methods

All topics are illustrated with demographic data using some demographic software packages. Once a week a lesson will be carried out in the lab.

Assessment methods

The exam test aims to verify the achievement of the following learning objectives:
• knowledge of demographic methods and survival models dealt during the lectures
• ability to use these methods to analyze and understand the main survival measures in a population
• knowledge and ability to use the main demographic software packages
The exam consists in a written test of the duration of two hours. If possible it occurs in a tech lab. The test is composed of exercises and open questions and is followed by an oral discussion. Question scores are indicated for each point.

Teaching tools

Videos and teach labs.

Office hours

See the website of Livia Elisa Ortensi