perccalc: An R package for estimating percentiles from categorical variables

perccalc is a direct implementation of the theoretical work of Reardon (2011) where it
is possible to estimate the difference between two percentiles from an ordered categorical
variable. More concretely, by specifying an ordered categorical variable and a contin-
uous variable, this method can estimate differences in the continuous variable between
percentiles of the ordered categorical variable. This bring forth a relevant strategy to con-
trast ordered categorical variables which usually have alternative continuous measures to
the percentiles of the continuous measures. Moreover, this opens an avenue for calcu-
lating percentile distributions and percentile differences for ordered categorical variables
which don’t necessarily have an alternative continuous measure such as job occupation
classifications; one relevant example being the classification from Erikson, Goldthorpe, &
Portocarero (1979).