Software for Demographic Behavioral Modeling

The purpose is to make available to the scientific community recent statistical and econometric techniques for the modeling of demographic behavior. The software developed as part of the project will allow demographers, sociologist, economists, epidemiologist, and researchers in other fields to answer a greatly expanded set of analytical questions not previously possible. Statistical procedures included in the software will be useful for modeling marital and nonmarital fertility, adult and child morality, cohabitation, marriage, divorce, health care utilization, medical cost, nursing home use, and a wide variety of other demographic models. Statistical models include failure-time, qualitative outcome, and continuous panel data. An important new feature is the ability to model these processes jointly. The project will take recent statistical developments previously applied to specific research problems and (1) develop the basic set of algorithms into a flexible and powerful software package, (2) make the software user friendly, (3) document the technical statistical algorithms, (4) write reference and user's manuals, (5) plan for distribution of the software, (6) provide training workshops for new users, and (7) design a system of support for users. Phase I will acquire existing algorithms, demonstrate feasibility of the software package, and plan Phase II research.