The Multi-State Model

Abstract

The life table was in use for some centuries before anyone noticed that the transition from life to death is an instance of much more general transitions{--}from well to sick, from school to work, from single to married, from working to unemployed, from living in Province A to living in Province B, from fecund to pregnant. For each of these, and many other transitions, a decrement table can be made, and the usefulness of doing so has been recognized in field after field. To study schooling, one routinely makes life tables of survival in school as against dropping out; to study the effectiveness of a contraceptive, one makes a life table of those remaining fecund versus those falling into pregnancy.