Poster session on Demographic methods and data

Introduction: The 5th Population and Housing Census in Sudan is one of the most important censuses in the history of Sudan. It is the only census that covered all parts of Sudan and based on the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) between North and South Sudan. It is hoped the census will provide information for a fair share in power, resources, services and development. For this reason the census had been highly politicized and contentious. As consequently the outcomes of census were rejected by the major political forces in the country. Objectives:The present study attempts to assess scientifically the quality of census data with special emphasis on the reported age-sex distributions.Methods: First, data will be examined to identify patterns of digit preference and then WhippLes, Myers' and Rachis indexes will be computed in order to furnish a clear picture of the magnitude of deficiencies that might have occurred, second data consistency checks and tests will be used to compare the results of the census with the previous census in Sudan.
Results: The results of the census showed that overall sex ratio of 105 with nearly one million more males than females. It also showed that there were about half a million 448,849 more males than females in the post-reproductive age group of 45 years old and above with a gender dispa

Although the modeling of age specific fertility schedules has been exposed in a lot of researches, modeling fertility by birth order has received little attention. Several works have attempted to fit observed parity specific schedules, but none of them expands to models that could be used to estimate parity specific schedules when only data on all births combined fertility are available.

We propose to derive parity specific fertility rates from an overall age-specific (all births combined). Based on model proposed by Peristera and Kostaki for fitting fertility curves, we explore the assumption that there is a relationship between all the parameters of their model for all births combined and for parity specific, and derive several sets of coefficients to estimate age and parity specific fertility schedules from age and all birth combined fertility schedules.

The aim of the study is to show the reduction in fertility from 1990 to 2010 in Mexico, by analyzing two important sources of information: Census of Population and Birth Certificates from administrative data.
First we will show through Birth Certificates how fertility has shown a reduction in the period, both in the Global fertility Rate and in Specific Fertility Rates too. We will present two sets of data, one calculated from the year of registration of birth using three years of information, and another from the age record, using up to thirty five months. We want to show by this, that both calculations produce similar information, and that using the age of registration gives opportunity, because we do not have to wait too much to have data.
On the other hand, we will present data from the 1990, 2000 and 2010 Population Census, and we calculate fertility by direct (using the question of last live birth) and indirect methods (the own children method). We can compare the information obtained directly and indirectly, demonstrating that is relevant in both ways, to estimate fertility through Population Census.
In both cases we use the information from specializing surveys in fertility to compare the results that we produce.

Availability of Information is the first step to have reliable results; it is only through information that we are able to control the activities, procedures and evaluations.
Data on population play an important role as a tool for demographic research; the availability of permanent and accurate demographic data is necessary in order to meet the needs of researchers and policy makers. Although there are many sources of demographic data, demographers around the world still suffer from lack of data which affects their work and consequently, the evidence based they provide to decision makers.
This paper aims to provide demographic information world map, it starts by reviewing the available demographic information classified by world regions to shed the light on: Main demographic parameters (fertility, mortality and migrations) and its sources (census, vital statistics, and special surveys). In its second section the paper provides a rapid assessment of the quality of the demographic data according to the international standards including: Relevance, accessibility, timeliness, Interpretability and Comparability. The main results of the paper can be used by the demographic organizations and individuals to work on those information gaps.

The paper deals with 3 topics: 1) Overview of existing sources of information on population. It covers databases: UN world population prospects, Eurostat, World health organization, Statistics Sweden, Institut National Etudes Démographiques, Human Mortality Database, and a series of others. The sources are analyzed using more than twenty quality criteria – user interface, list of countries and indicators covered, age groups of population, data formats and precision, periodicity of updating, etc. 2) Description of the Database of demographic indicators for countries of the world and regions of Russia under development at the Institute of Demography of the National Research University Higher School of Economics: the principles of data collection from different sources, methods of formation of the data cubes, metadata for these arrays, the set of indicators currently covered, the reference files for coding, ... 3) New features distinguishing this Database from another ones, examples of its use for specific data queries and modes of work. They display several know-how options, including formation of query result from the several sources specified by the user and elimination of erroneous values “on-the-fly”, recalculation of values of the indicator in the case of diverse units of measurement used in different sources.

National Sample Survey (NSS) provides national and sub-national level information on morbidities and health care at regular intervals since its inception on 1953-54. In these surveys, information for all members of sample household was gathered either from head or a key informant of the household. This paper aims to explore the effect of proxy-reporting on population estimates of morbidity prevalence and to identify patterns of biases in these estimates due to proxy responses based on recent 60th round NSS data on morbidity and health care. In this round, information for 68 percent sample population was collected from proxy respondents. Proxies underreported morbidities with an overall morbidity prevalence of 81 per 1000 adult population compared with self-reported morbidity prevalence of 148. Proxy-responses in NSS on morbidity and health care introduce systematic biases, affecting national and regional estimates of morbidity prevalence. Suitable adjustment for proxy-responses should be made while estimating realistic population risks from NSS data.

A mixture probability density functions is proposed to model mortality data. We propose to model the deaths function (dx) rather than probability or rates, since the normalized dx function is a probability density function. In this way we expect to have a relatively goog fit with a low number of parameters. We fit the mixture model for a large variety of mortality pattern, showing that the model defined is flexible to have a good fit in many cases.

This paper analyzes the variables used to measure female empowerment using factor and multilevel analysis with data coming from Egyptian Demographic and Health surveys at different points in tome. The findings highlight the difficulty in measuring female empowerment in a meaningful way, with questions around both the reliability and the validity of the data, with particular issues raised around the temporal comparability of such measures. Although I specifically looked at Demographic and Health surveys in Egypt, the findings suggest that similar problems could be found in other surveys and settings.

Among military officers higher rank associates with life expectancy. This may be causation: benefits of higher rank may cause life to last longer - or selection: robust health helps making it to top ranks. We investigate graduates of 1949, 1950, 1951 of the US Naval Academy (n=2206) and US Military Academy (n=1719), with 42%, 49%, 49% equally distributed survivors, focussing on men with 20+ years service, when men could retire with benefits.Variation in major intervening variables in this sample is minimal. Beyond the expected positive association between final rank and life span we find mortality differentials by rank peaking around age 75 then decreasing. This pattern supports selection hypothesis. Modelling unobserved heterogeneity by a frailty variable suggests that levelling off of differential mortality at higher ages is caused by differential loss rate by final rank. Trajectories to different final ranks and different lifespans start drifting apart early.

The paper presents a reconstruction of educational attainments by sex, five-year age groups, and six levels of education from 2010 to 1960 in 170 countries, based on a multi-state back-projection method that takes into account migration and mortality differentials by gender and age group. We discuss the methodology and validation of results against the available empirical data and discuss the methodological advantages as compared to other existing databases of past educational attainment. We also outline additional possibilities of still further-reaching back-projection that would cover most of the 20th century for a reduced number of countries and education categories. The database will enable a better understanding of the manifold social and private returns to education and a more accurate population forecasting.