Unit 4 - Activity 8 - Beer Demographic Worksheet

How to use Time Series Data from E-STAT with Excel

“Beer Consumption Demographics”
Based on an assignment created by Joel Yan, Statistics Canada, (joel.yan@statcan.ca ), John Kezys, Mohaw

The greatest consumers of domestic beer are sports-minded young men and women.
During the eighties the 20 to 24 age cohort experienced the greatest growth.
Foot D., 1996, Boom Bust & Echo, Macfarlane Walter & Ross, ISBN 0-921912-97-8

Your Task: Use E-STAT to investigate Dr. Foot’s hypothesis by creating time
series plots for the 20 to 24 age cohort and beer consumption in Canada since
1971 and making a graph comparing Beer Consumption with the Percentage
of the population 20-24 years old.

Part A: Retrieve data from E-STAT

http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/home-accueil?lang=eng
1. In Search window type number 002-0011
–Food available in Canada, annual (kilogram per person, per year)

2. On the subset selection page, choose as follows:

 Choose Canada, Food available
 Under Commodity select Ale, beer, stout and porter, total population (litres per person, per
year)
 Under From select 1971
 Under To select the most recent year

3. Click the Retrieve as Individual Time Series button.

4. Scroll to the bottom, and click Manipulate data.

5. Click the Add more series button at the bottom of the page.

6. Type table number 051-0001, click on “the phrase” then Search

7. 051-0001 Estimates of population, by age group and sex, Canada, provinces and territories, annual
will open

8. On the subset selection page, choose as follows:

 Under Geography select Canada
 Under Sex select Both sexes
  Under Age group select the first series (**while holding down the Ctrl key on a Windows
platform or the Command key on a Macintosh computer) 'All ages' and also scroll down and
select '15 to 19 years','20 to 24 years', '25 to 29 years', and ‘30 to 34 years'
 Under From select 1971, Under To select the most recent year

9. Click the Retrieve as individual Time Series button.

10. In the Output specification screen under output format selection, select CSV, time as rows.

11. Click on Retrieve Now and save it to your G: drive, close Internet Explorer and open it in Excel.

Part B: Excel Analysis

1. Create a scatter plot showing the beer consumption in litres over time. (What should be the
independent and dependent variable?)

2. Describe the pattern in this graph. Provide an explanation for the shape of this distribution.

We cannot study Dr. Foot's claim directly, since we do not have information on beer consumption by age
group. However we can look at the size of the 20-24 year old age cohort (or any other cohort) as a
percentage of total population. Then we can check if there is a relationship between average beer
consumption in Canada and the relative size of this cohort. Since beer consumption is measured in
average number of litres consumed per year over the entire population, we need to convert the 20-24
year old cohort, to a percentage of the total population.

3. Create a scatter plot showing the population of 20-24 year-olds over time.

4. Compare this graph to the graph from #1. Describe any connections.

5. Add a new column to the table, showing the percentage of the 20-24 year old cohort to the total
population (divide 20-24 year old by all ages for each year and multiply by 100%)
***Key question: Why did we make this column of the percentage of 20-24 year olds?
Why is the percentage of 20-24 year olds to the total population a better indicator than
just the number of 20-24 year olds?

*In your summative, you should never use just the number of people, you need to always change it to a
percent of the total population.

6. Make a graph comparing Beer Consumption with the Percentage of the population 20-24 years old.

7. Show the line of best fit, the coefficient of determination, and the equation of the line of best fit.

8. Use these parameters to describe the correlation of the data (i.e. comment on strength, direction,
trend).

9. Explain the pattern of beer consumption in relation to the population percentage of 20-24 year olds.
Does this pattern tend to support or refute Dr. Foot’s statement above?

10. If you were a marketing specialist, how would you use this information to market beer?