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continuous or discrete

is birth and death rates continuos or discrete data?
Original post by kashafay
is birth and death rates continuos or discrete data?


Well you can't get half a person being born, or dying: Births and deaths happen in discrete units. So, the rates will be discrete, though they can take a wide range of values.
Original post by ghostwalker
Well you can't get half a person being born, or dying: Births and deaths happen in discrete units. So, the rates will be discrete, though they can take a wide range of values.

Agreed, except perhaps in the case where birth and death rates are expressed in terms of (say) events per 100,000 head of population per year. Then each rate will be the ratio of two integers - still strictly discrete but with a very large number of closely spaced possible values. If we then consider that the population figure used to calculate the rates will change from year to year, the number of possible values become so large that the rates become to all practical intents and purposes continuous in nature.

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