Interpreting the Cumulative Frequency Distribution of Socio-Economic Data: A Recent Study

Abstract

This study explores the deeper meaning of socio-economic frequency distributions, particularly in their accumulated form, called an OGIVE [1]. Due to the obsession of statisticians during the past century with “significance” little attention had been paid to statistical methods in the social sciences [2]. The first part of this study, reviewing the asymmetric nature of frequency distributions of socio-economic data may surprise statisticians in the medical and bio-science fields. Customary measures developed for their symmetric distri- butions do not apply to socio-economic data. The second part of this study deals with the Ogive, a cumulative form of the same frequency data. Textbooks on statistics mention the Ogive only as a curiosity, describing how to construct one. Yet never mentioned is its meaning, its interpretation, its contribution to a fuller understanding of the underlying socio- economic situation This study explores how to extract from an Ogive features of the frequency distribution that otherwise remain unnoticed.