Click the icon to view and/or download the PDF file.
Once you are in the PDF file, use your browser back button to return to this page.
Click the icon to view the HTML version of this article.
It will be displayed in a new window.
Additional files The following additional files belong to this article. Click the icon to view the files.
To save them click the icon with the right mouse button and choose "Save target as..." or "Save link as..."
In the past thirty years, more than 100 censuses gathered fertility data through questions on women's date of last birth. The standard "births last year" (BLY) approach for such data truncates timing information, using binary indicators for births in the prior year only. The first author recently proposed consistent, maximum-likelihood estimation approaches using untruncated date of last birth (DLB).
In this paper we extend DLB techniques to parametric models. We construct estimators for Coale-Trussell M and m parameters from open interval lengths. We apply the new procedure to Brazilian census data, producing maps and spatial statistics for BLY and DLB m estimates in 723 municipalities in Minas Gerais. DLB estimators are less sensitive to sampling error than BLY estimators. This increased precision leads to clearer spatial patterns of fertility control, and to improved regression.
(NOTE from the editorial office: to best view the HTML of this article, you should be using Windows 95 or higher. Readers using other operating systems may not be able to view all of the embedded symbols, and we suggest they use the PDF version instead.)
Author's affiliation Carl Schmertmann Florida State University, United States of America André Junqueira Caetano University of Texas at Austin, United States of America
