Analyzing the consequences of family structure with event-history methods.

Problems associated with the application of statistical methods and model building to the analysis of historical demographic data are examined with particular reference to data from population registers. "The object of this paper is to present a set of statistical models--generally termed event-history or proportional-hazards models--that not only deal effectively with the kind of data that the population registers make available but for which the population registers are one of the best existing data sets." The models are tested using data from Japanese population registers. (EXCERPT)