New Methodology for Multivariate Analysis of the Total Fertility Rate and Its Components Based on Birth-History Data

Robert D. Retherford, East West Center
Hassan Eini-Zinab, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Naohiro Ogawa, Nihon University
Rikiya Matsukura, Nihon University

A discrete-time survival model is used to model parity progression from woman’s own birth to first marriage, from first marriage to first birth, from first birth to second birth, and so on, with one model for each parity transition. Predictor variables include woman’s age and duration in parity as well as socioeconomic characteristics. Collectively the models yield estimates of birth probabilities by age, parity, and duration in parity — denoted Pait — by socioeconomic characteristics. The Pait allow calculation of “global life tables”, which yield both period and cohort estimates of PPRs, ASFRs, mean and median ages at first marriage, mean and median closed birth intervals, mean and median ages at childbearing (both overall and by child’s birth order), TFR, and TMFR. Because the Pait are multivariate, the global life tables are multivariate, as are all measures calculated from them.