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July 29, 2006

Mid-Life in the Garden of Good and Evil

As if dating wasn't enough pressure, so that we have to turn it into TV shows, we also note from Landon Jones Class of '66 the Fall of the Haves.

But wait -- the numbers are mixed. What the heck should we make of this?
In the spirit of number crunching, they say "statistics don't lie; statisticians lie." Let's fib:
- The 40th Reunion survey population was only 58% of the 25th Reunion's.
- If we assume that everyone had shown up and given exactly the same answers they had before, we'd have gotten the same numbers the second time as the first -- 100% sameness.
- But instead, there was only a 58% chance of getting the same numbers, because 42% of the respondents didn't make the second shot.
- If we take the 47% Depression/Anxiety rate from the 25th, and reduce it to 58% of that rate, the 40th Reunion rate would have been 27%. Wonderfully, the recorded Depression/Anxiety rate for the 40th was only 19%, a much more attractive outcome!
- By that same artifice, Resetting Priorities, Loneliness and Kid's Problems all fared better than expected.
- Sadly, Separation/Divorce, Health Concern, and Parents' Health all did worse than expected.

Is this ridiculous? Hope so! But if we could find the 42% of earlier respondents that didn't show up this time, and poll them separately as a group, would their numbers look like the numbers for this 58% that did show up? The correct answer is, "why the heck would they?"

But what the hell. Let's pretend. If we take the numbers from the 40th anniversary group in the chart, reduce them all by 8%, (to be 50% of the earlier anniversay group), and then double all those response rates, you get this result for a fictional 100% repeat participation:
- Depression/Anxiety only dropped to 35%
- Separation/Divorce skyrocketed worse: 31%
- Resetting Priorities tried but failed to stay the same: 59%
- Loneliness got a lot less better: 24%
- Health Concerns went nuts: 33%
- Parents' Health went nuts: 85%
- and Children's Problems got out of hand too: 26%.

The highlights: Separation/Divorce; Health, and Kids. Gee, sounds like middle age!
On the other hand, if you think this math was sound, please don't handle any of your own money.

Posted by Malcolm Ryder at July 29, 2006 2:09 PM

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