Volume 54 - Article 12 | Pages 371–404  

A flexible model for reconstructing education-specific fertility rates: The case of sub-Saharan Africa

By Dilek Yildiz, Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, Zuzanna Brzozowska, Afua Durowaa-Boateng

Abstract

Background: Accurate and harmonized estimates of education-specific fertility rates are crucial for understanding the past and projecting the future human population. Yet fertility estimates derived from demographic surveys that collect detailed fertility histories often do not align with the reliable and widely used United Nations (UN) World Population Prospects. This inconsistency means that the choice of data source can affect research outcomes on fertility trends.

Objective: We combine the patchy Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data and the UN total fertility rate (TFR) estimates to create three harmonized datasets of education-specific TFRs for 36 sub-Saharan African countries, with different degrees of consistency with the UN TFR.

Methods: We develop a flexible Bayesian hierarchical model that reconstructs education-specific fertility rates by combining the DHS data and the UN TFR estimates.

Results: We provide time series of education-specific TFR quinquennial estimates between 1980 and 2014 for 36 sub-Saharan African countries. We present three model specifications that provide the users with fertility estimates that differ in their degree of consistency with the UN TFR.

Conclusions: The model estimates show significant variation across countries, leading to divergent fertility trends from 1980 to 2014, mainly in levels but sometimes also in direction.

Contribution: Our flexible modelling framework offers model specifications that suit different conditions and can obtain results consistent with stakeholder needs: consistent with but not identical to the UN, fully consistent (nearly identical) with the UN, and consistent with the DHS. Further, our estimates of education-specific TFR can be used to analyse and forecast fertility trends and their contribution to population change in 36 sub-Saharan African countries.

Author’s Affiliation

• Dilek Yildiz - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria EMAIL
• Arkadiusz Wiśniowski - University of Manchester, United Kingdom EMAIL
• Zuzanna Brzozowska - Gesundheit Österreich GmbH, Austria EMAIL
• Afua Durowaa-Boateng - Vienna Institute of Demography (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Austria EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

A Bayesian model for the reconstruction of education- and age-specific fertility rates: An application to African and Latin American countries
Volume 49 - Article 31

Shifting spousal age gaps in Kenya and Ghana: Does education matter?
Volume 53 - Article 41

Education, religion, and male fertility in sub-Saharan Africa: A descriptive analysis
Volume 53 - Article 8

A multidimensional global migration model for use in cohort-component population projections
Volume 51 - Article 11

Now-casting Romanian migration into the United Kingdom by using Google Search engine data
Volume 45 - Article 40

Attitudinal and behavioural indices of the second demographic transition: Evidence from the last three decades in Europe
Volume 44 - Article 46

Cohort fertility decline in low fertility countries: Decomposition using parity progression ratios
Volume 38 - Article 25

Using Twitter data for demographic research
Volume 37 - Article 46

Fertility and education in Poland during state socialism
Volume 31 - Article 12

Births to single mothers: Age- and education-related changes in Poland between 1985 and 2010
Volume 30 - Article 52

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Learning and reproductive health: Do early cognitive skills contribute to better sexual and reproductive health outcomes among adolescents in Ethiopia?
Volume 54 - Article 7    | Keywords: adolescence, education, education, Ethiopia, fertility, sub-Saharan Africa

Shifting spousal age gaps in Kenya and Ghana: Does education matter?
Volume 53 - Article 41    | Keywords: age gap, education, gender dynamics, Ghana, Kenya, spousal age difference

Educational outcomes in stepfamilies: A comparative analysis of cohabitation and remarriage
Volume 53 - Article 34    | Keywords: cohabitation, comparative analysis, education, remarriage, stepfamily

Reassessing the U-shaped relationship between gender equality and fertility: A replication and extension of Kolk’s (2019) study using comprehensive gender equality measures
Volume 53 - Article 29    | Keywords: fertility, gender, gender equality, human development, Human Fertility Database (HFD)

Early unintended childbearing and unsecured debt in the United States
Volume 53 - Article 27    | Keywords: demography, fertility, gender, life course, mothers