Volume 1 - Article 5 | Pages –  

Estimating Parametric Fertility Models with Open Birth Interval Data

By Carl Schmertmann, André Junqueira Caetano

Abstract

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 EMAIL
• André Junqueira Caetano - University of Texas at Austin, United States of America EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Data errors in mortality estimation: Formal demographic analysis of under-registration, under-enumeration, and age misreporting
Volume 51 - Article 9

D-splines: Estimating rate schedules using high-dimensional splines with empirical demographic penalties
Volume 44 - Article 45

Revivorship and life lost to mortality
Volume 42 - Article 17

Editorial: The past, present, and future of Demographic Research
Volume 41 - Article 41

Stationary populations with below-replacement fertility
Volume 26 - Article 14

Quadratic spline fits by nonlinear least squares
Volume 12 - Article 5

A system of model fertility schedules with graphically intuitive parameters
Volume 9 - Article 5

Similar articles in Demographic Research

Fertility timing and the birth squeeze
Volume 54 - Article 40    | Keywords: birth squeeze, cyclical populations, fertility, marriage, marriage squeeze, stable population

Educational differences in fertility recuperation: The role of partnership trajectories in Spain
Volume 54 - Article 38    | Keywords: births, fertility, partnership trajectories, recuperation, recuperation of births, Spain

Economic resources and parity among US women: A conjoint experiment on preferred family scenarios
Volume 54 - Article 34    | Keywords: conjoint analysis, economic resources, experiments, family, fertility

Partnership life courses and completed fertility in Spain
Volume 54 - Article 29    | Keywords: feature selection, fertility, life course, partnership trajectories, Spain

Harmonised fertility histories in four British longitudinal cohort studies
Volume 54 - Article 18    | Keywords: cohort studies, fertility, harmonised data, United Kingdom