Indirect Estimates of Total Fertility Rate Using Child Woman/Ratio: A Comparison with the Bogue-Palmore Method

Abstract

Indirect estimation methodologies of the total fertility rate (TFR) have a long history within demography and have provided important techniques applied demographers can use when data is sparse or lacking. However new methodologies for approximating the total fertility rate have not been proposed in nearly 30 years. This study presents a novel method for indirectly approximating the total fertility rate using an algebraic rearrangement of the general fertility rate (GFR) through the known relationship between GFR and TFR. It then compares the proposed method to the well-known Bogue-Palmore method. These methods are compared in 196 countries and include overall errors as well as characteristics of the countries that contribute to fertility behavior. Additionally, these methods were compared geographically to find any geographical patterns. We find this novel method is not only simpler than the Bogue-Palmore method, requiring fewer data inputs, but also has reduced algebraic and absolute errors when compared with the Bogue-Palmore method and specifically outperforms the Bogue-Palmore method in developing countries. We find that our novel method may be useful estimation procedure for demographers.

Social vulnerability projections improve sea-level rise risk assessments

“…This was necessary to limit some otherwise rapidly growing or declining cohorts in some tracts with unusually high CCRs (e.g., over 200). Second, to determine the target year's 0-9 age cohort, we did not use CWRs, but instead controlled this group using implied total fertility rates (iTFR) (Hauer, Baker, and Brown 2013) for race/ethnicity specific groups from the controlled county projections, following:…”

Spatial trends of fertility rates in Finland between 1980 and 2014

“…As evident from Fig. 1, iTFR correlates strongly with TFR (see also Hauer et al, 2013). The mainland of Finland is divided into 18 administrative regions.…”

“…Variables used were municipalities (301 municipalities in the mainland, the Aland island was omitted because of geographical isolatedness), year, and number of women and men by age group. With the data obtained from Statistics Finland, we calculated yearly implied Total Fertility Rates (iTFR; see Hauer et al, 2013 for the deduction) for each municipality:…”

“…where ₅ 0 P is equal to Population aged 0 to 4 and n x W is the total number of women aged x to x+n (Hauer et al 2013). Here, x = 15 and n = 34, i.e., women between 15 and 49 years of age were considered to be in the reproducing population.…”

Bayesian Estimation of Total Fertility from a Population's Age-Sex Distribution

“…However, an increasing demand for specialized population estimates (and for small geographic areas in particular) has revived interest in indirect methods (Schmertmann, Cavenaghi, Assunção, and Potter, 2013). One newly-derived method for indirectly estimating total fertility (Hauer et al, 2013) uses an algebraic rearrangement of the general fertility rate. Called the implied Total Fertility Rate (iT F R), it estimates total fertility from age-and sex-specific population counts only.…”