The Human Fertility Collection: an emerging source of demographic data

The Human Fertility Collection (HFC) is a joint project of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) and the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID). It is designed to supplement the Human Fertility Database (www.humanfertility.org) and provide a variety of fertility data collected from various external sources. In contrast to the HFD, the collection comprises data not only from official statistics but also published by individual researchers and research organizations and may involve additional dimensions (regions, ethnic groups, etc.). The relevant documentation is also offered to the users. The HFC aims at including a wide range of countries and covering the longest possible time periods. The data in the HFC are provided in the standardized format and can be easily and openly accessed. The HFC website is expected to be launched in August 2013 (www.fertilitydata.org ). The database will contain unconditional fertility rates and selected aggregate indicators for a number of national and subnational populations. Whenever possible, order-specific data will be also made accessible to the users. This paper describes the HFC, computational procedures used for data harmonization as well as its structure.