We compare life course typology solutions generated by sequence analysis (SA) and latent class analysis (LCA). First, we construct an analytic protocol to arrive at typology solutions for both methodologies and present methods to compare the empirical quality of alternative typologies. We apply this protocol to develop and compare SA- and LCA-derived family-life typologies for women born between 1960 and 1964 in 15 European countries, using data from the Family and Fertility Survey. This paper contributes to the use of these classification techniques in four different ways. First, we present guidelines on how to establish the number of classes or clusters to use. Second, we show how to evaluate the stability of these clusters. Third, we provide a way to evaluate the validity of these clusters and finally, we provide for a formal heuristic to relate the stochastically defined latent classes to the distance-based clusters found with SA.

中文翻译：

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生活课程分类的比较方法：序列分析和潜在类别分析

我们比较了由序列分析（SA）和潜在类别分析（LCA）生成的生命周期类型学解决方案。首先，我们构建了一个分析协议，以得出两种方法的类型学解决方案，并提出了比较替代类型学经验质量的方法。我们使用该协议为家庭和生育力调查提供的数据，为15个欧洲国家的1960年至1964年之间出生的妇女开发和比较SA和LCA衍生的家庭生活类型。本文以四种不同的方式为这些分类技术的使用做出了贡献。首先，我们提供有关如何确定要使用的类或群集数量的指南。其次，我们展示了如何评估这些集群的稳定性。第三，我们提供一种评估这些聚类有效性的方法，最后，