ABSTRACT
Life course events occur at specific points in time and in relation to other life events. People experience a period of time (or spell) in one situation (or state) before moving to another state, which they will occupy for a further spell; for example being single and then getting married. The first part of this chapter presents models that have been developed to analyse data on the duration of spells and the interrelationship between spells and other characteristics or influences. Survival models, which are applicable when a spell ends in a single event, are discussed. Discrete time models are appropriate in a much wider range of applications (and subsume survival models) and are presented in the second part of this chapter.
