demor: R package for basic and advanced methods of demographic analysis
Abstract
Formal demographic analysis, including the construction of life tables, standardization of indicators, decomposition of changes, and modeling of demographic processes, requires complex calculations and data manipulation. Despite the advances in methods, many of them have not yet been implemented as ready-to-use, convenient tools in modern statistical environments. To address this issue, we present the demor package for the R programming language, designed to make formal demographic methods more accessible. The package provides a unified interface for a wide range of tools from different areas, lowering the barrier to the application of modern analytical approaches. The package includes functions for analyzing mortality (single and multiple life tables, single and multiple decompositions, measures of inequality – Gini index, e-dagger, years of life lost), fertility (TFR and its adjustment, mean age of childbearing, fertility models), and forecasting (Lee-Carter model with extensions, Leslie matrix, and cohort-component model). In addition, demor includes pre-processed data on mortality and fertility for Russia and its regions from RosBRiS. All this should help lower the threshold for entry into formal demography for researchers who are not professionally involved in computational methods and mathematical demography.
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References
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