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Age-Period-Cohort Model×Lexis Diagram×
FieldDemographyDemography
FamilyRegression modelProcess / pipeline
Year of origin19831875
OriginatorTheodore R. Holford (modern estimable-function formulation)Wilhelm Lexis
TypeRegression decomposition of rates into age, period and cohort effectsGeometric bookkeeping device for demographic events on the age, period, and cohort axes
Seminal sourceHolford, T. R. (1983). The estimation of age, period and cohort effects for vital rates. Biometrics, 39(2), 311–324. DOI ↗Preston, S. H., Heuveline, P., & Guillot, M. (2001). Demography: Measuring and Modeling Population Processes. Blackwell. ISBN: 9781557864512
AliasesAPC Model, Age-Period-Cohort Analysis, Holford APC ModelLexis surface, Age-period-cohort diagram, Lexis grid, Lexis Diyagramı
Related44
SummaryThe age-period-cohort (APC) model decomposes variation in a vital rate — mortality, incidence, fertility — into three temporal dimensions: the age of individuals, the calendar period of observation, and the birth cohort to which they belong. It is the standard framework for asking whether a trend reflects how risk changes with age, contemporaneous period influences affecting all ages at once, or generational effects carried by successive cohorts. Its defining technical challenge is that cohort equals period minus age, an exact linear dependence that makes the three sets of linear effects unidentifiable without further assumptions; Holford's 1983 formulation clarified exactly which quantities can and cannot be estimated.The Lexis diagram is a geometric bookkeeping device that places every demographic event in a two-dimensional grid of age against calendar time, so that each person's life traces a diagonal line and each cohort fans out as a band of parallel lifelines. Named after the German statistician Wilhelm Lexis, it is the foundational drawing of formal demography: it makes the otherwise confusing relationship between age, period, and birth cohort visible, and it tells the analyst exactly which deaths, births, and person-years belong together when a rate is computed.
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ScholarGateCompare methods: Age-Period-Cohort Model · Lexis Diagram. Retrieved 2026-06-24 from https://scholargate.app/en/compare