Steven Ruggles

Regents Professor of History and Population Studies
Director, Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation
University of Miinnesota
ruggles@umn.edu
(612) 624-5818

DECOMP

Software for Multiple Standardization and Demographic Decomposition

DECOMP is a program designed to do multiple direct standardization and decomposition of differences between two rates according to the method described by Prithwis Das Gupta, "A General Method of Decomposing a Difference Between Two Rates into Several Components," Demography 15:1 (1978), 99-111.

I wrote the program gradually between 1986 and 1989. In 2021, I updated the syntax for compatibility with Fortran 90. The functionality is unchanged except that I increased the maximum number of cases from five million to five billion, and I raised the maximum matrix size from 28,000 cells to 640,000 cells. I still use it, and I know of several others who also use it occasionally. Feel free to do anything you like with it. If you make any improvements, please send me a copy. If you use it in a publication, please cite it appropriately and also let me know.

This program was originally written using Microsoft Fortran for DOS, and I distributed it on orange 5.25" 360K floppies. I compiled the current Windows executable file with the 64-bit NAG Fortran Compiler.

DECOMP reads column-format ASCII data files using a simple set of SPSS-like commands. To run the program in Windows, make a folder and copy the executable file (dc2.exe). When you click on it, it should open and ask you for the name of your command file. You will need to create an ASCII file with your commands--follow the instructions in the manual.

DECOMP Manual (must read!): decomp.pdf OR decomp.doc
Executable file for Windows: dc2.exe
Sample DECOMP command files: sample1.dec
sample2.dec
sample3.dec
sample4.dec
sample5.dec
Data for use with sample command files: pus1900.dat
Codebook for sample dataset: pus1900.doc
Source code (F90 compiler) dc2.f90
Original Source code (Microsoft Fortran 4.1) decomp.for
Sample article using DECOMP: The Demography of the Unrelated Individual”


Steven Ruggles

Regents Professor of History and Population Studies
Director, Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation
University of Miinnesota
ruggles@umn.edu
(612) 624-5818

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