Data quality in demographic surveys: tests and experiments

Time use analysis is important for understanding how individuals divide their time between work, leisure, socialization, domestic chores and caregiving, to name just a few activities. This allows us to explore inequalities between genders, ages and socioeconomic status. But in order to do time use analysis we need to have good data. In the case of Mexico, which collects time use data through pre-coded time-budget surveys, the quality of information seems to decrease with the age of the individuals. In particular, the number of hours that the surveys explain for each individual decrease as age increases. This implies that the surveys, which are designed to capture most daily activities, are not capturing the time use of the elderly adequately. In this paper I use missing data techniques to impute the activities of younger individuals to the elderly, and compare the results with their reports.

We evaluate the mortality gap between sexes that favors females well before birth. Censuses and vital statistics are used. Estimates refer to most recent data up to 2011. Analyses refer to Brazil, a country where infant/child mortality (ICM) have sharply decreased. It is a developing setting without evidence of gender preference at early ages.
Besides the ICM according to sex, indicators used are the male to female mortality ratio (MFMR) and sex ratio of the population under age 10. ICM is evaluated using the Brass method on children survivorship. Values indicate that MFMR tends to decline over time thus improvements in child survivorship favor relatively more baby boys. Similar evidence is found using vital statistics with different degree of reliability. MFMR below 100, indicating that infant male mortality is lower than among girls are frequent. The pattern delineated by the data describes small ICM differences by sex when ICM decreases. Differences are, apparently, smaller than those found in developed setting or model life tables.
This trend could be associated to the fast decline in ICM stimulated by huge social investments originated by the MDG; more research is needed to evaluate whether implementation and monitoring of social policies, particularly those related to maternal and child programs

This paper assesses the effect of women marital status in the households whether categorized as a head of household or not when her marital status is ‘married’ in her legal marital status. Female household is an indicator of the head of household who is a female when she is a household member. The other factor going to track her significance determination that she is as the household head is the work status of women in the households, into variables 'working' and or 'unemployed'. This working status variable is used as control variable in the analysis. The data source of this research is derived from IPUMS-International Data, mainly focusing on Population Census of Austria data set in series started from 1971 up to 2001 (the latest one). Other literature studies and secondary data are also be used in order to strengthen the research result. Based on the panel data census for three decades it will support and portray the emerging gender bias of trend and tendency in female household in the family. The result of this study will be useful to support the refining concept design and data processing of Population Census in Austria and other countries as lessen learn. Finally, the Population Census data of Austria can be used more strategically and accurately for policy making and decision making on gender sensitive development.

This study discusses reasons why household-based surveys might under-represent young unmarried and childless women and therefore not capture correctly the life experiences of young women. We examine the differences in marital status data between household-based surveys and censuses in several Asian countries that have experienced increased labor force participation among young women (Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Mongolia). To determine the extent of over-estimation of fertility levels, we adjust age-specific fertility rates on the basis of marital status distribution in censuses. The implications for interpretations of the fertility trends are far-reaching. In Bangladesh, while differences between reported and adjusted values were small for the 1992-93 DHS, the 2007 DHS reported an adolescent fertility (ABR) of 126 and was adjusted to 77 births per 1000 women aged 15-19. When analyzing fertility trends only from DHS, the country achieved in two decades a relatively small deduction adolescent childbearing. Yet the story may, in fact, be different: the postponement of childbearing —concurrent with the postponement in marriage as seen in the census data—resulted in a decline of ABR to half the level from the early 1990s and played a key role in the rapid fertility decline in Bangladesh.

The low birth weight is an important factor explaining the child mortality in India. Low birth weight occurs because of poor maternal health and nutrition. However, there is no reliable estimate of low birth weight is available in India. Information on birth weight available in large scale demographic surveys in India are not complete. Looking at the importance of the issue the current study aims: (i) to study pattern of reporting system of birth weight in India and states and (ii) to examine the heaping at certain digits in reporting of birth weight in India and states by mother memory recall and health card. Data from the third round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) conducted during 2005-06 is used. Bi-variate and multivariate analysis will be used for analysis purpose. As per NFHS-3 data set birth weight is reported only for 34 percent births and birth weights are missing for 66 percent births. Regional variation is observed in reporting of birth weight in India. It varies highest 72 percent in Southern India and lowest 12 percent reported in Central region. Incidence of low birth weight also varies by region. Highest 27 percent low birth weight was reported in Northern region and lowest 18 percent reported in Southern region. Reporting/Incidence of low birth weight varies by residence, education and wealth index.

This study investigates the extent of bias in the estimates of infant and under-five mortality derived from the Brass children ever born children surviving (CEB/CS) method as a result of HIV/AIDS. The bias is estimated by comparing the infant and under-five mortality derived from the CEB/CS method with direct estimates from the full birth history data from recent DHS data. The estimates from the full birth history data have been corrected for bias due to HIV/AIDS using the method used by IGME.

IMRs and U5MRs derived from data from women aged 25-39 were underestimated by up to 15% in the six countries studied. Estimates of bias in data derived from women aged 20-24 differed between countries. The results from these younger women could be affected by differences between the indirect and direct methods of estimation. In two of the countries, estimates of overall bias of more than 30% were observed. The bulk of the overall bias is due to the effect of HIV on the survival of mothers and their children. The choice of model life table does not introduce much bias, especially in estimates of under-five mortality where the absolute bias in most countries was less than 3%.

This study analyses the experience in Latin America regarding the use of the census question on last live-born child survival. Such question has been included in recent population census with a view of estimating infant mortality. However, it is not always possible to compute all the elements needed to obtain the probability of dying within the first year of life, thus the estimates suffer from some methodological vices that do not offset the costs of introducing a census question.

In this paper, practices across countries that included the question on last live-born child survival in their 2000 and 2010 census are compared, highlighting differences in the question formulation and the scope of the data. The authors estimate infant mortality for those countries having included this question. These estimations are compared to those presented in the publication Child mortality: a database of Latin America since 1960 drafted by ECLAC and UNICEF.

Findings show that figures derived from the census question on last live-born child differ significantly from those published in the ECLAC-UNICEF study for all scenarios and countries analysed. These results show that the use of the question on last live-born child survival in censuses is not performing robustly.

A standard methodological assumption in social and demographic surveys is that interviewers should be strangers to respondents. Bias is feared should the interviewer and respondent know each other prior to the interview. We refer to this assumption as the “stranger-interviewer norm” and note that it has never been systematically tested. In order to subject it to scrutiny, we fielded an experimental survey in a town of the Dominican Republic countryside in the summer of 2010. We employed a mix of local and outsider interviewers and hired enough locals to produce an adequate number of “insider” interviews, that is, interviews where interviewer and respondent knew each other. Systematic randomization in our sampling design gives our survey the rigor of an experiment. In this paper we use these data to evaluate how the accuracy of responses varies by the level of familiarity between interviewer and respondent, as we were able to validate a number of survey questions by checking official documents that confirmed (or disconfirmed) respondents’ reports. At the time of this submission our analyses have failed to find support for the stranger-interviewer norm. There is instead some evidence that respondents are more cooperative with interviewers when these are not outsiders.

Background: The personal Digital Assistant (PDA) has proven time-saving ability and quality assurance of data against normal human error in paper-based data collection and compilation.

Objective: Discuss the use of PDA for recording demographic events and quick report generation and explore its potential compared to the paper-based system.

Methodology: The Basic4ppc 6.9 software was used in the data-collection tool loaded onto iPaq Pocket PC hp212 series. Four outreach workers and 4 Field Research Assistants (FRAs) received one-week training on PDA handling. Back-up support at the end of interview to storage cards in PDA and data were downloaded to PCs every 2 weeks.

Results: No major PDA-related problems or loss of data were encountered. A team from the head office observed the time and errors at the time recording events in the PDA and paper. Sixty-five percent less time was required for recording of each event.

Conclusion: Evidence of time-consuming and error-prone process of data-entry and compilation, and of improvement in data quality demonstrates the potential for the use of PDA in a large scale. The supervisors easily monitor the worker's field activities. Quality data available within the shortest period of time and can support other studies providing most recent data.

Unwanted fertility is an important concept for understanding fertility behaviour. In Australia, about 10% of live births between 2005-2008 are estimated to have been unwanted, and a further 10% were mistimed in that they occurred earlier than desired. One criticism of measures of unintended childbearing is that they are usually only based on the views of one parent, typically the mother. In recent years, there has been increasing awareness of the need to consider men’s roles and to study childbearing decision in the context of the couple. To this end, many surveys ask respondents to provide proxy answers on behalf of their partner. While proxy reports can be a cost-effective and simple way to gain information about the partner, without actually interviewing them, there has been little systematic research assessing their accuracy. Using data from a 2008 Australian survey we assess the accuracy of proxy reports of pregnancy wantedness by directly comparing them with the partner’s responses. We find that proxy reports are accurate in 87% of cases. In the remaining 13%, they either over or underestimated the degree to which the partner wanted the pregnancy. Proxy reports are often inaccurate when the partner did not want the child.