UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

In this paper, I develop demographic models which can be used to simulation household changes resulting from marriage, divorce or separation, childbirth, children leaving home, cohabitation, extended families living together, death, and so forth. They are dynamic in nature, and are meant to be used within a larger microsimulation system. In fact, they can be used by any microsimulation system that models decision-making at the household level. They extend previous work in three ways: 1) by using continuos time hazard models, 2) by allowing for inter-dependencies across the various type of changes that a household may undergo, and 3) by including several important covariates. These covariates include age, gender, race, education, income, employment status, and indicators for previous demographic events (e.g. birth of a child out-of-wedlock and previous marriages). They provide insight into the demographic patterns across different socioeconomic groups.