DOI: 10.3886/e34747v1
title: Longitudinal Analysis of Historical Demographic Data

description: This study contains teaching materials developed over a period of years for a four-week workshop, Longitudinal Analysis of Historical Demographic Data (LAHDD), offered through the ICPSR Summer Program in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013, with one-day alumni workshops in 2010, 2012, and 2014. Instructors in the workshops are listed below. Funding was provided by The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, grants R25-HD040525 and R25-HD-049479, the ICPSR Summer Program and the ICPSR Director. The course was designed to teach students the theories, methods, and practices of historical demography and to give them first-hand experience working with historical data. This training is valuable not only to those interested in the analysis historical data. The techniques of historical demography rest on methodological insights that can be applied to many problems in population studies and other social sciences. While historical demography remains a flourishing research area with publications in key journals like Demography, Population Studies, and Population, practitioners were dispersed, and training was not available at any of the population research centers in the U.S. or elsewhere. One hundred and ten participants from around the globe took part in the workshops, and have gone on to establish courses of their own or teach in other workshops. We offer these materials here in the hopes that others will find them useful in developing courses on historical demography and/or longitudinal data analysis.
<br>The workshop was organized in three tracks: A brief tour of historical demography, event-history analysis, and data management for longitudinal data using Stata and Microsoft Access. The data management track includes 13 exercises designed for hands-on learning and reinforcement. Included in this project are the syllabii and reading lists for the three tracks, datasets used in the exercises, documents setting out each exercise, a file with the expected results, and for many of the exercises, an explanation. Video tutorials helpful with the Access exercises are accessible from ICPSR's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqC9lrhW1Vvb9M1QpQH23z9UlPYxHbUMF.
<br>
<br>Users are encouraged to use these materials to develop their own courses and workshops in any of the topics covered. Please acknowledge NICHD R25-HD040525 and R25-HD-049479 whenever appropriate.
<br>
<br>Historical demography instructors: 
<br>Myron P. Gutmann, University of Colorado Boulder 
<br>Cameron Campbell, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
<br>J. David Hacker, University of Minnesota 
<br>Satomi Kurosu, Reitaku University 
<br>Katherine A. Lynch, Carnegie Mellon University
<br>
<br>Event history instructors:
<br>Cameron Campbell, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
<br>Glenn Deane, State University of New York at Albany
<br>Ken R. Smith, Huntsman Cancer Institute and University of Utah
<br>
<br>Database management instructors:
<br>George Alter, University of Michigan
<br>Susan Hautaniemi Leonard, University of Michigan
<br>
<br>Teaching Assistants:
<br>Mathew Creighton, University of Massachusetts Boston
<br>Emily Merchant, University of Michigan
<br>Luciana Quaranta, Lund University
<br>Kristine Witkowski, University of Michigan
<br>
<br>Project Manager:
<br>Susan Hautaniemi Leonard, University of Michigan
<br>
<br>