Friday, November 21, 2025
HomeLanguagesPython | Pandas Series.mad() to calculate Mean Absolute Deviation of a...

Python | Pandas Series.mad() to calculate Mean Absolute Deviation of a Series

Pandas provide a method to make Calculation of MAD (Mean Absolute Deviation) very easy. MAD is defined as average distance between each value and mean.

The formula used to calculate MAD is:

Syntax: Series.mad(axis=None, skipna=None, level=None)

Parameters:
axis: 0 or ‘index’ for row wise operation and 1 or ‘columns’ for column wise operation.
skipna: Includes NaN values too if False, Result will also be NaN even if a single Null value is included.
level: Defines level name or number in case of multilevel series.

Return Type: Float value

Example #1:
In this example, a Series is created from a Python List using Pandas .Series() method. The .mad() method is called on series with all default parameters.




# importing pandas module 
import pandas as pd 
    
# importing numpy module 
import numpy as np 
    
# creating list
list =[5, 12, 1, 0, 4, 22, 15, 3, 9]
  
# creating series
series = pd.Series(list)
  
# calling .mad() method
result = series.mad()
  
# display
result


Output:

5.876543209876543

Explanation:

Calculating Mean of series mean = (5+12+1+0+4+22+15+3+9) / 9 = 7.8888

MAD = | (5-7.88)+(12-7.88)+(1-7.88)+(0-7.88)+(4-7.88)+(22-7.88)+(15-7.88)+(3-7.88)+(9-7.88)) | / 9.00

MAD = (2.88 + 4.12 + 6.88 + 7.88 + 3.88 + 14.12 + 7.12 + 4.88 + 1.12) / 9.00

MAD = 5.8755 (More accurately = 5.876543209876543)

RELATED ARTICLES

Most Popular

Dominic
32405 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Milvus
97 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Nango Kala
6781 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Nicole Veronica
11928 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Nokonwaba Nkukhwana
11997 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Shaida Kate Naidoo
6907 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Ted Musemwa
7166 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Thapelo Manthata
6862 POSTS0 COMMENTS
Umr Jansen
6847 POSTS0 COMMENTS