Week 8 Project

Trends in Divorce Rates and Margarine Consumption Over Time

The divorce_margarine dataset from the dslabs package provides data on the divorce rate in Maine (measured per 1,000 people), per capita margarine consumption (in pounds), and the corresponding year. This dataset offers opportunity to explore the concept of spurious correlation—a situation where two unrelated variables appear to be correlated due to coincidence. In this analysis, the goal is to investigate any apparent correlation between divorce rates in Maine and margarine consumption per capita over time.

# Load the package with needed data sets
library(dslabs)
# Load the dataset
data("divorce_margarine", package = "dslabs")
# View the first few rows and a summary of the data
head(divorce_margarine)

  divorce_rate_maine margarine_consumption_per_capita year
1                5.0                              8.2 2000
2                4.7                              7.0 2001
3                4.6                              6.5 2002
4                4.4                              5.3 2003
5                4.3                              5.2 2004
6                4.1                              4.0 2005

summary(divorce_margarine)

 divorce_rate_maine margarine_consumption_per_capita      year     
 Min.   :4.10       Min.   :3.700                    Min.   :2000  
 1st Qu.:4.20       1st Qu.:4.275                    1st Qu.:2002  
 Median :4.25       Median :4.900                    Median :2004  
 Mean   :4.38       Mean   :5.320                    Mean   :2004  
 3rd Qu.:4.55       3rd Qu.:6.200                    3rd Qu.:2007  
 Max.   :5.00       Max.   :8.200                    Max.   :2009  

# Load the necessary package
library(ggplot2)
library(dslabs)
# Load the dataset
data("divorce_margarine", package = "dslabs")
# Enhanced scatterplot with smoothers
ggplot(divorce_margarine, aes(x = year)) +
  geom_point(aes(y = divorce_rate_maine, color = "Divorce Rate")) +
  geom_smooth(aes(y = divorce_rate_maine, color = "Divorce Rate"), method = "loess", se = FALSE) +
  geom_point(aes(y = margarine_consumption_per_capita, color = "Margarine Consumption")) +
  geom_smooth(aes(y = margarine_consumption_per_capita, color = "Margarine Consumption"), method = "loess", se = FALSE) +
  labs(
    title = "Trends in Divorce Rates and Margarine Consumption Over Time",
    x = "Year",
    y = "Rate / Consumption",
    color = "Variable",
    caption = "Data Source: dslabs package, divorce_margarine dataset"
  ) +
  scale_color_manual(values = c("Divorce Rate" = "#e31a1c", "Margarine Consumption" = "#1f78b4")) +
  theme_minimal()

`geom_smooth()` using formula = 'y ~ x'
`geom_smooth()` using formula = 'y ~ x'