Abstract
In this study, we assess the accuracy of fertility estimates that stem from the retrospective information that can be derived from an existing cross-sectional population. Swedish population registers contain information on the childbearing of all people ever registered as living in Sweden, and thus allow us to avoid problems of selectivity by the virtue of survival or nonemigration when estimating the fertility measures for previous calendar periods. We calculate two types of fertility rates for each year in 1961–1999: (i) rates that are based on the population that was living in Sweden at the end of 1999, and (ii) rates that also include information on people who had died or emigrated before the turn of the twentieth century. We find that the omission of information on individuals who had emigrated or died, as the situation would be in any demographic survey, most often have negligible effects on fertility measures. However, first-birth rates of immigrants gradually become more biased as we move back in time from 1999 so that they increasingly tend to over-estimate the true fertility of that population.
Highlights
The purpose of this study is to provide an examination of the magnitude of the bias that may appear in fertility estimates that are based on retrospective information on childbearing gathered at a fixed point in time
We present the relative risks of childbearing by calendar year for childless younger women, childless women at ages 30–45, one-child mothers, and two-child mothers who were all born in Sweden, with a separate curve for each category of women (Fig. 1)
Our fertility measures are given on a relative scale for each group of women separately, so we get a good picture of changes over time in the propensity to give birth, but no information on differences in fertility levels between the different categories of women
Summary
The purpose of this study is to provide an examination of the magnitude of the bias that may appear in fertility estimates that are based on retrospective information on childbearing gathered at a fixed point in time. Many studies of human fertility are based on survey data that are collected by asking respondents about their preceding histories of childbearing and about other related behaviors. Such information is considered reliable since the birth of a child is such an important event in people’s lives that respondents will report it accurately. Even if we restrict ourselves to the very reliable histories of childbearing as reported by women in developed countries, we may be faced with some problems if we try to estimate the measures of fertility for the population of a given area for periods preceding the survey date
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Schedule a callMore From: European Journal of Population / Revue européenne de Démographie
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