Statistical population

Statistics is a science that studies mass phenomena that take place in society in terms of quality and quantity. This is only one of the accepted definitions. There is a point of view on it as a science that develops statistical methods for research that are conducted in various fields.

The most essential and common features, properties, connections of phenomena and objects existing objectively, reflect certain concepts or categories. With their help this science studies its own subject. One of these categories is the statistical population. This is a large number of changing phenomena that exist in space and time. All of them are relatively homogeneous and have signs that bring them closer or different.

The statistical population is characterized by the following properties:

1. Indecomposability. When some elements of the statistical population appear or disappear, its qualitative basis is not destroyed. For example, the characteristic of the generality of students does not change from the fact that freshmen enter its ranks each year, and graduates leave them.
2. Uniformity. The statistical population always has at least one common feature for all its elements. And at the same time, this property is not the same for them. This characteristic can have different values for different units. The extent to which the statistical population is homogeneous is established during the study. And this feature depends, first of all, on those goals and tasks with which it is conducted.
3. Variation. This property is more important than the previous two. It manifests itself as follows: during the transition from one element of the statistical population to another, the quantitative value of the characteristic changes. It can be the same for all components. In this case, to get an idea of what a statistical population is, you can not study it completely, but consider only one constituent element. The emergence of variation is affected by a variety of causes and conditions. Their finding and clarification are carried out by economic disciplines. And statistics only assesses, from a quantitative point of view, how each cause affects the variation of a certain attribute. Information about this helps to make the right management decisions.

Statistical populations are divided into several groups:

1. Those that are created by life. They already form a unity, regardless of whether they are subjected to research or not. This, for example, the aggregate of industrial enterprises of the city, the totality of their employees. They exist realistically, they can be measured.
2. Groups that are formed specifically to conduct research. This, for example, is the statistical aggregate of readers of a certain periodical.
3. Hypothetical sets. These are stochastic aggregates (for example, celestial bodies existing throughout the Galaxy). That is, they are only supposed, they are thinking.

Any statistical aggregate belonging to any of the three groups has characteristic features. Classify them for many reasons.

For example, depending on the nature of the expression, the symptoms are:

1. Descriptive (attributive). They are expressed with the help of words (for example, education, nationality, gender). These signs allow us to summarize how many units have this or that value.
2. Quantitative. Their measure is numerical (for example, age, length of service, amount of income or expense, etc.). These signs also allow us to sum up the number of those units that have a certain value, as well as their mean or total value separately for the aggregates.