Tag Archives | Marginal Effects

Marginal Odds Ratios: What They Are, How to Compute Them, and Why Sociologists Might Want to Use Them

Kristian Bernt Karlson, Ben Jann

Sociological Science April 27, 2023
10.15195/v10.a10


As sociologists are increasingly turning away from using odds ratios, reporting average marginal effects is becoming more popular. We aim to restore the use of odds ratios in sociological research by introducing marginal odds ratios. Unlike conventional odds ratios, marginal odds ratios are not affected by omitted covariates in arbitrary ways. Marginal odds ratios thus behave like average marginal effects but retain the relative effect interpretation of the odds ratio. We argue that marginal odds ratios are well suited for much sociological inquiry and should be reported as a complement to the reporting of average marginal effects. We define marginal odds ratios in terms of potential outcomes, show their close relationship to average marginal effects, and discuss their potential advantages over conventional odds ratios. We also briefly discuss how to estimate marginal odds ratios and present examples comparing marginal odds ratios with conventional odds ratios and average marginal effects.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Kristian Bernt Karlson: Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen
E-mail: kbk@soc.ku.dk

Ben Jann: Institute of Sociology, University of Bern
E-mail: ben.jann@unibe.ch

Acknowledgments: We thank the following for invaluable comments and feedback: Tim Liao, Mike Hout, Rudolf Farys, and Jesper Fels Birkelund, as well as participants at the Hans Schadee Research Methods Center Seminar on November 3, 2022, at Trento University; the Seminar on Analytical Sociology on November 14–17, 2022, at Venice International University; and the 2022 Swiss Stata Meeting on November 18, 2022, at University of Bern. For Kristian Bernt Karlson, the research leading to the results presented in this article has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 851293). Replication materials for the examples reported in this article are available here: https://osf.io/xkre6/.

  • Citation: Karlson, Kristian Bernt, and Ben Jann. 2023. “Marginal Odds Ratios: What They Are, How to Compute Them, and Why Sociologists Might Want to Use Them.” Sociological Science 10: 332-347.
  • Received: January 31, 2023
  • Accepted: February 17, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Stephen Vaisey
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a10


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