Syllabus

Sequence Analysis Workshop

Silke Aisenbrey & Anette Eva Fasang

This workshop introduces sequence analysis for social science research. Sequence analysis, originally developed in biology to analyze strings of DNA, has attracted increasing attention in the social sciences for the analysis of longitudinal data. Most applications in the social sciences study life course processes, such as labor market careers, educational careers, or family formation. This workshop covers basic techniques of sequence analysis as well as recent methodological developments tailored at social science research questions. The workshop introduces techniques for sequence comparison, including optimal matching analysis, dynamic hamming matching, sequence similarity based on subsequence metrics, and multichannel sequence analysis. We will also discuss measures for sequence complexity over time, bootstrapping of sequence distances, and sequence visualization. All methods are demonstrated with hands-on examples using R’s TraMineR package.

Version of this workshop have been taught at:

Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course, Yale University, New Haven.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Program, Columbia University, New York.

Turku Center for Welfare Research, Summer Workshop 2011: "Life course dynamics and the mechanisms of social inequality". University of Turku, Finland.

Day 1

Session 1: morning (non-computer lab)

From Dance Patterns to Career Patterns

- Concepts of time in longitudinal data analysis

- Introduction to optimal matching analysis

- Discussion of different examples of applications include: patterns of lynching, retirement, chronic mental illness, dance, musicians, employment careers, welfare states, family formation

Session 2: afternoon (computer lab)

Hands on Example: Optimal Matching Analysis

- Introduction to R

- Describing and visualizing sequences

- An example application of Optimal Matching Analysis

- We will use a dataset on labor market entry processes for this part of the class.

Day 2

Session 3: morning (non-computer lab)

The ‘Second Wave’ of Sequence Analysis: recent methodological developments tailored at social science research questions

- Time dependent cost specification/dynamic hamming matching

- Sequence similarity based on subsequence metrics

- Multichannel sequence analysis

- Bootstrap Confidence Intervals for sequence distances

Session 4: afternoon (computer lab)

Hands on Example: Above and Beyond Optimal Matching Analysis

- We will use this last session to apply all or some of these more complex sequence methods to an example dataset and possibly data that participants will bring to class (if you have a dataset and are interested in using it in class, please contact the instructors beforehand)

Required Readings:

Day 1

Abbott, Andrew. 2001. Time Matters. On Theory and Method. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapter 8 & Epilogue.

MacIndoe, Heather and Andrew Abbott. 2004. “Sequence Analysis and Optimal Matching Techniques for Social Science Data.” Pp. 387-406 in Handbook of Data Analysis, edited by M. Hardy and A. Bryman. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Gabadinho, Alexis, Gilbert Ritschard, Nicolas S. Müller, and Matthias Studer. 2011. "Analyzing and Visualizing State Sequences in R with TraMineR." Journal of Statistical Software 40(4):1-37.

Day 2

Aisenbrey, Silke and Anette E Fasang. 2010. “New Life for Old Ideas: the ‘Second Wave’ of Sequence Analysis.” Sociological Methods & Research 38: 420-462.

Bras, Hilde, Aart C. Liefbroer, and Cess H. Elzinga. 2010. “Standardization of Pathways to Adulthood? An Analysis of Dutch Cohorts Born Between 1850 and 1900.” Demography 47: 1013-1034.

Lesnard, Laurend. 2008. “Off-scheduling within Dual-Earner Couples: An Unequal and Negative Externality for Family Time.” American Journal of Sociology 114: 447-490.

Further Readings:

Aassve, Arnstein, Francesco C. Billari, and Raffaella Piccarreta. 2007. “Strings of Adulthood: A Sequence analysis of Young British Women's Work-Family trajectories.” European Journal of Population 23:369-388.

Abbott, Andrew, and John Forrest. 1986. “Optimal Matching Methods for Historical Sequences.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XVI:3:471-494.

Abbott, Andrew, and Angela Tsay. 2000. “Sequence Analysis and Optimal Matching Methods in Sociology.” Sociological Methods & Research 29 (1):3-33

Abbott, Andrew. 1995. “Sequence Analysis: New Methods for Old Ideas.” Annual Review of Sociology 21:93-113.

Aisenbrey, Silke. 2000. Optimal Matching Analyse. Opladen: Leske & Budrich.

Biemann, Torsten, and Joachim Wolf. 2009. “Career patterns of top management team members in five countries: an optimal matching analysis.” The International Journal of Human Resource Management 20(5):975-991.

Biemann, Torsten, Anette E Fasang and Daniela Grunow. “Do economic globalization and industry growth destabilize careers? An analysis of career complexity and career patterns over time.” Forthcoming in November 2011 Issue of Organization Studies.

Billari, Francesco C. and Raffaella Piccarreta. 2005. “Analysing Demographic Life Courses through Sequence Analysis.” Mathematical Population Studies 12:1-27.

Brüderl, Josef, and Stefani Scherer. 2006. “Methoden zur Analyse von Sequenzdaten.” Sonderheft 44 der Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie:330-347.

Brzinsky-Fay, Christian, and Ulrich Kohler (eds). 2010. “Special Issue: New Developments in Sequence Analysis.” Sociological Methods & Research 38:359-364.

Brzinsky-Fay, Christian, Ulrich Kohler, and Magdalena Luniak. 2006. “Sequence analysis with Stata.” The Stata Journal 6(4):435-460.

Cox, N.J. 2004. “Stata tip 12: Tuning the plot region aspect ratio.” The Stata Journal 4(3):357-358.

Dijkstra, Wil and Trond Taris. 1995. “Measuring the Agreement Between Sequences.” Sociological Methods & Research 24(2):532-35.

Elzinga, Cees H. 2003. “Sequence Similarity: A Non-Aligning Technique.” Sociological Methods & Research 32(3):3-29.

—. 2008. “Algorithms for subsequence combinatorics.” Theoretical Computer Science 409(3):394-404.

—. 2010. “Complexity of Categorial Time-Series.” Sociological Methods & Research 38:463-481.

Fasang, Anette E. “Retirement Patterns and Economic Inequality.” conditionally accepted, Social Forces.

Fasang, Anette E. and Tim Liao. “Visualization in Sequence Analysis.” Under review.

Gabadinho, Alexis, Gilbert Ritschard, Matthias Studer, and Nicolas S. Müller. 2009. “Mining sequence data in R with the TraMineR package: A user's guide.” Technical report, Department of Econometrics and Laboratory of Demography, University of Geneva, Geneva, 2009b. URL http://mephisto.unige.ch/traminer/.

Gabadinho, Alexis, Gilbert Ritschard, Matthias Studer, and Nicolas S. Müller. 2011. Extracting and Rendering Representative Sequences. In Fred, A., Dietz, J.L.G., Liu, K. & Filipe, J. (eds) Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. Series: Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS). Volume 128, pp. 94-106. Springer-Verlag.

Gauthier, Jacques-Antoine, Eric D. Widmer, Philipp Bucher, and Cedric Notredame. 2009. “How Much Does It Cost?: Optimization of Costs in Sequence Analysis of Social Science data.” Sociological Methods & Research 38(197-231).

—. 2010. “Multichannel Sequence Analysis Applied to Social Science Data.” Sociological Methodology forthcoming.

Halpin, Brendan. 2010. “Optimal Matching Analysis and Life-Course Data: The Importance of Duration.” Sociological Methods & Research 38:365-388.

Halpin, Brendan, and Tak Wing Chan. 1998. “Class Careers as Sequences: An Optimal Matching Analysis of Work-Life Histories.” European Sociological Review 14(2):111-130.

Han, Shin-Kap. 2010. “Redressing the Balance between Symmetric and Asymmetric Ties: A Survey.” Paper presented at the ASA Methodology Section Meeting Spring 2010, University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign.

Han, Shin-Kap, and Phyllis Moen. 1999. “Clocking Out: Temporal Patterning of Retirement.” American Journal of Sociology 105(1):191-236.

Hollister, Matissa. 2009. “Is Optimal Matching Suboptimal?” Sociological Methods & Research 38:235-264.

Kohler, Ulrich, and Christian Brzinsky-Fay. 2005. “Stata Tip 25: Sequence Index Plots.” The Stata Journal 5(4):601-602.

Lesnard, Laurent.. 2010. “Setting Costs in Optimal Matching to Uncover Contemporaneous Socio-Temporal Patterns.” Sociological Methods & Research 38:389-419.

Levine, Joel H. 2000. “But What Have You Done for Us Lately? Commentary on Abbott and Tsay.” Sociological Methods & Research 29(1):34-40.

Martin, Peter, Ingrid Schoon, and Andy Ross. 2008. “Beyond Transitions: Applying Optimal Matching Analysis to Life Course Research.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 11:179-199.

Müller, Nicolas S., Alexis Gabadinho, Gilbert Ritschard, and Matthias Studer. 2008. "Extracting knowledge from life courses: clustering and visualization." in Data Warehousing and Knowledge Discovery, 10th International Conference DaWaK 2008, Turin, Italy, September 2-5, LNCS 5182, Berlin: Springer, 176-185.

Piccarreta, Raffaella, and Francesco C. Billari. 2007. “Clustering work and family trajectories by using a divisive algorithm.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A 170:1061-1078.

Piccarreta, Raffaella, and Orna Lior. 2010. “Exploring sequences: a graphical tool based on multi-dimensional scaling.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A 173:165-184.

Pollock, Gary. 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 (Statistics in Society) 170:167-183.

Rohwer, Götz and Heike Trappe. 1997. “Describing Life Courses. An Illustration Based on NLSY Data.” Polis working paper.

Scherer, Stefani. 2001. “Early Career Patterns: A Comparison between Great Britain and West Germany.” European Sociological Review 17:119-114.

Stovel, Katherine, and Marc Bolan. 2004. “Residential Trajectories: Using Optimal Alignment to Reveal the Structure of Residential Mobility.” Sociological Methods & Research 32(4):559-598.

Stovel, Katherine, Michael Savage, and Peter Bearman. 1996. “Ascription into Achievements: Models of Career Systems at Lloyds Bank 1890-1970.” American Journal of Sociology 102 (2):358-399

Tibshirani, Robert, Guenther Walther, and Trevor Hastie. 2001. “Estimating the Number of Clusters in a data Set via the Gap Statistic.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B 63:411-423.

Wiggins, Richard D., Christian Erzberger, Martin Hyde, Paul Higgs, and David Blane. 2007. "Optimal Matching analysis Using Ideal Types to Describe the Lifecourse: An Illustration of How Histories of Work Partnerships and Housing Relate to Quality of Life in Early Old Age.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 10:259-278.

Wu, Lawrence L. 2000. "Some comments on "Sequence analysis and optimal matching methods in sociology: review and prospect.” Sociological Methods & Research 29:41-64.