IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/209702.html

Visualizing Sequences in the Social Sciences: Relative Frequency Sequence Plots

Author

Listed:
  • Fasang, Anette Eva
  • Liao, Tim Futing

Abstract

Visualization is a potentially powerful tool for exploration and complexity reduction of categorical sequence data. This article discusses currently available sequence visualization against established criteria for graphical excellence in the visual display of quantitative information. Existing sequence graphs fall into two groups: They either represent categorical sequences or summarize them. The authors propose relative frequency sequence plots as an informative way of graphing sequence data and as a bridge between data representation graphs and data summarization graphs. The efficacy of the proposed plot is assessed by the R2 and the F statistics. The applicability of the proposed graphs is demonstrated using data from the German Life History Study on women’s family formation.

Suggested Citation

  • Fasang, Anette Eva & Liao, Tim Futing, 2014. "Visualizing Sequences in the Social Sciences: Relative Frequency Sequence Plots," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43(4), pages 643-676.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:209702
    DOI: 10.1177/0049124113506563
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/209702/1/Full-text-article-Fasang-et-al-Visualizing-sequences-in.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0049124113506563?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hilde Bras & Aart Liefbroer & Cees Elzinga, 2010. "Standardization of pathways to adulthood? an analysis of Dutch cohorts born between 1850 and 1900," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(4), pages 1013-1034, November.
    2. Gary Pollock, 2007. "Holistic trajectories: a study of combined employment, housing and family careers by using multiple‐sequence analysis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(1), pages 167-183, January.
    3. Matissa Hollister, 2009. "Is Optimal Matching Suboptimal?," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 38(2), pages 235-264, November.
    4. Cees H. Elzinga & Aart C. Liefbroer, 2007. "De-standardization of Family-Life Trajectories of Young Adults: A Cross-National Comparison Using Sequence Analysis," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 23(3), pages 225-250, October.
    5. Francesco Billari & Raffaella Piccarreta, 2005. "Analyzing Demographic Life Courses through Sequence Analysis," Mathematical Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 81-106.
    6. Anette E. Fasang, 2010. "Retirement: Institutional Pathways and Individual Trajectories in Britain and Germany," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 15(2), pages 1-16, May.
    7. Gabadinho, Alexis & Ritschard, Gilbert & Müller, Nicolas S & Studer, Matthias, 2011. "Analyzing and Visualizing State Sequences in R with TraMineR," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 40(i04).
    8. Raffaella Piccarreta & Francesco C. Billari, 2007. "Clustering work and family trajectories by using a divisive algorithm," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(4), pages 1061-1078, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anette Eva Fasang & Tim Futing Liao, 2014. "Visualizing Sequences in the Social Sciences," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 43(4), pages 643-676, November.
    2. Liao, Tim F. & Bolano, Danilo & Brzinsky-Fay, Christian & Cornwell, Benjamin & Fasang, Anette Eva & Helske, Satu & Piccarreta, Raffaella & Raab, Marcel & Ritschard, Gilbert & Struffolino, Emanuela & S, 2022. "Sequence analysis: Its past, present, and future," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 107, pages 1-1.
    3. Christian Brzinsky-Fay & Ulrich Kohler, 2010. "New Developments in Sequence Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 38(3), pages 359-364, February.
    4. Struffolino, Emanuela & Studer, Matthias & Fasang, Anette Eva, 2016. "Gender, education, and family life courses in East and West Germany: Insights from new sequence analysis techniques," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 29, pages 66-79.
    5. Raffaella Piccarreta, 2017. "Joint Sequence Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 46(2), pages 252-287, March.
    6. Anette Fasang & Marcel Raab, 2014. "Beyond Transmission: Intergenerational Patterns of Family Formation Among Middle-Class American Families," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1703-1728, October.
    7. Zachary Van Winkle & Anette Fasang, 2021. "The complexity of employment and family life courses across 20th century Europe: More evidence for larger cross-national differences but little change across 1916‒1966 birth cohorts," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(32), pages 775-810.
    8. Matthias Studer & Gilbert Ritschard & Alexis Gabadinho & Nicolas S. Müller, 2011. "Discrepancy Analysis of State Sequences," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 40(3), pages 471-510, August.
    9. Marie Bergström & Léonard Moulin, 2022. "Couple Formation is Prolonged not Postponed. New Paths to Union Formation in Contemporary France," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(5), pages 975-1008, December.
    10. Thomas King, 2013. "A framework for analysing social sequences," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 167-191, January.
    11. Zachary Winkle, 2018. "Family Trajectories Across Time and Space: Increasing Complexity in Family Life Courses in Europe?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 135-164, February.
    12. Raffaella Piccarreta, 2012. "Graphical and Smoothing Techniques for Sequence Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 41(2), pages 362-380, May.
    13. David Pelletier & Simona Bignami-Van Assche & Anaïs Simard-Gendron, 2020. "Measuring Life Course Complexity with Dynamic Sequence Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 1127-1151, December.
    14. Paola Di Giulio & Roberto Impicciatore & Maria Sironi, 2019. "The changing pattern of cohabitation: A sequence analysis approach," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(42), pages 1211-1248.
    15. repec:osf:socarx:3mcfp_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Piccarreta, Raffaella & Bonetti, Marco, 2019. "Assessing and comparing models for sequence data by microsimulation (with Supplementary Material)," SocArXiv 3mcfp, Center for Open Science.
    17. Tom Kleinepier & Helga A. G. de Valk, 2016. "Ethnic differences in family trajectories of young adult women in the Netherlands: Timing and sequencing of events," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 35(24), pages 671-710.
    18. Marco Bonetti & Raffaella Piccarreta & Gaia Salford, 2013. "Parametric and Nonparametric Analysis of Life Courses: An Application to Family Formation Patterns," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(3), pages 881-902, June.
    19. Elsenburg, Leonie K. & Rieckmann, Andreas & Bengtsson, Jessica & Jensen, Andreas Kryger & Rod, Naja Hulvej, 2024. "Application of life course trajectory methods to public health data: A comparison of sequence analysis and group-based multi-trajectory modeling for modelling childhood adversity trajectories," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    20. Struffolino, Emanuela, 2019. "Navigating the early career: The social stratification of young workers’ employment trajectories in Italy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 63, pages 1-17.
    21. Tom Kleinepier & Helga A. G. de Valk & Ruben van Gaalen, 2015. "Life Paths of Migrants: A Sequence Analysis of Polish Migrants’ Family Life Trajectories," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 31(2), pages 155-179, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:209702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.