Here - Tilburg University

Presenter
Liao, Tim F.; University of Illinois
Authors
Tim F. Liao, University of Illinois; Anette Fasang, Yale University
Title
A Permutation Test for Comparing Groups of Social Science Sequences
Abstract
Sequence analysis has seen recent advances as well as wider applications
in the social sciences. However, no formal way exists in the literature for
directly comparing groups of sequences to determine whether they are different
in a statistically meaningful way. To fill this gap, we propose a permutation test
for comparing groups of social science sequences. We view a typical social
science sequence such as life-course or employment-history sequences as
having certain characteristics such as transition to first marriage, first birth, or
first job, that contribute some unique information. Therefore, in addition to
proposing a permutation test for comparing overall sequence-group differences
via sequence-based distance such as the Levenshtein distance, we propose to
apply the permutation test on statistics that isolate specific aspects of
sequences. Examples of such statistics include the relative frequency of
transitions and the timing of certain events. We apply the test to both simulated
groups of sequences and data from the German Life History Study (GLHS) on
family formation of East and West German women.