Computing Time-Varying Sex-Age-Specific Rates of Marriage/Union Formation and Dissolution in Family Household Projection or Simulation

This article presents two procedures that are useful in both macro and micro projection/simulation models concerning marriage/union formation and dissolution. One is for computing time-varying sex-age-specific rates that are consistent with independently projected life course propensities of marriage/union formation and dissolution in the one-sex life course simulation model. Another one is for computing time-varying sex-age-specific rates that are consistent with the two-sex constraints and with independently projected summary measures of marriage/union formation and dissolution in the two-sex family household projection model. Illustrative numerical examples based on U.S. data demonstrate that the proposed procedures are valid. 1 Zeng Yi is Research Professor at the Center for Demographic Studies and the Department of Sociology of Duke University ([email protected]), Professor of China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, and Distinguished Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. 2 Eric Stallard is Research Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University. 3 Zhenglian Wang is Research Associate of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University. Demographic Research – Volume 11, Article 10 http://www.demographic-research.org 264