The Demopædia Encyclopedia on Population is under heavy modernization and maintenance. Outputs could look bizarre, sorry for the temporary inconvenience

Multilingual Demographic Dictionary, second unified edition, English volume

Specific rate

Multilingual Demographic Dictionary, second unified edition, English vol.
(Redirected from Rate, specific)
Jump to: navigation, search
Specific rate  (SPECIFIC rate)


The relative frequency (133-5) of a non-renewable event is often regarded as an empirical measure of the probability 1 of occurrence of that event. This presumes that all the individuals who appear in the denominator have been exposed to risk 3 in some way, i.e. there must have been a chance 2 or risk 2 that the event in question could happen to them. The use of the term "risk" does not imply that the event in question is in any way unwanted; thus the term "risk of marriage" is used. The population is often divided into different sub-groups, in which the risk of the event in question is less variable between individuals than in the population as a whole; the subgroup is more homogeneous 4 with respect to the risk than the relatively heterogeneous 5 whole population. Rates calculated for such subgroups are called specific rates 6 as opposed to crude rates (136-8) which apply to the population as a whole. General rates 7 sometimes involve an age restriction, as in the instance of general fertility rates (633-7).

  • 1. Probability, n. - probable, adj.
  • 4. Homogeneous, adj. - homogeneity, n.
  • 5. Heterogeneous, adj. - heterogeneity, n.

More...