Abstract

Social and political change can be understood in terms of three basic temporal variables: age, period, and cohort (APC). Age is simply the amount of time that has elapsed since birth, period is the moment in historical time when the observation takes place, and cohort is the time when an individual was born. These variables entail quite different explanations and mechanisms. Although the conceptual distinction between age, period, and cohort effects seems clear enough, they are difficult to distinguish in empirical research. The reason is that age, period, and cohort are defined in terms of each other: period (survey year) minus age is cohort (birth year), period minus cohort is age, and age plus cohort is period.

Several solutions to the APC problem have been proposed, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The objective of this workshop is to give an overview of the most important approaches to APC analysis in contemporary research. Participants will get acquainted with the rationale, caveats, and critiques associated with each approach.

The workshop will cover the following topics and go through the methods with hands-on exercises:
(1) Age, period and cohort in the analysis of individual and social change
(2) The Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort Model (HAPC)
(3) The Age-Period-Cohort Interaction Model (APC-I)
(4) The Life Cycle-Social Change Model (LC-SC)

Participants should be prepared by reading Alwin and McCammon, at least one of the overview papers, and go through the methods papers (see the detailed program in the attachment below). Participants should bring their laptop with software (Stata or RStudio) installed.

There are 20 places available for those who wish to participate.