Abstract
The book Lexis diagram in Demography provides a brief insight into topics related to economist and social scientist Wilhelm Lexis as well as the key demographic instrument named after him: the Lexis diagram. The Lexis diagram (also called a demographic grid or demographic diagram) is the basic tool in Demography which enables demographers to visualize structure of data about human life and population in dimensions of age, period and cohort.
Although the demographic grid is a commonly used tool in demography, not so general is the knowledge of its development as well as the fact, that several types of demographic grid exist. First of all, a brief description of the life of Wilhelm Lexis is presented in the book.
Then the methodological chapters follow. They are focused on notation and definitions which are necessary for demographic research and on description of the life tables, another important tool of demographic analysis, directly related to the demographic grid.
The most extensive part of the book deals with the development of the demographic grid in general and so discuss the question whether Wilhelm Lexis is really an author of the diagram which is named after him. The importance of this text lies also in the introduction of different types of the demographic grid, incl. practical examples, and discussion of their pros and cons in relation to usage in particular specific tasks of demographic analysis.
The book covers also the contemporary practical applications of the Lexis diagram using three of the most common statistical software: SAS (Statistical Analysis System), R, and Stata software. In addition to that, the selected key-studies from demographic, epidemiologic, and migration research, where the Lexis diagram is applied, are listed and discussed.