Reflections on the World Fertility Survey

Miloš Macura and John Cleland

Chapter Chapter 18 in A Celebration of Statistics, 1985, pp 409-436 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract A total of 62 countries comprising about 40 per cent of the world’s population participated in the World Fertility Survey (WFS). The WFS is thus by far the most ambitious project ever undertaken by ISI and probably the largest social survey ever attempted. In terms of sampling and data collection, the methodology of the project was exemplary. The data-processing record is less satisfactory, because of an initial failure to foresee the complexity of the issues and the magnitude of the practical problems. In its later years, the project made an unexpectedly major contribution to analytic methodology. So far, the main contribution to knowledge has been to confirm the downward trend in fertility that characterized much of Asia and Latin America in the 1970s, and to highlight the contrast with Africa where both fertility and the desire for large numbers of children remain high. So far, important new insights into the causes of fertility change have not emerged, but attempts to synthesize the vast range of WFS findings have only just begun, and it is thus premature to make any final assessment of this aspect of the project.

Keywords: demographic transition; household roster; machine editing; maternity history; questionnaire design; sample clusters; sampling errors; sampling frame (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1985
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-1-4613-8560-8_18

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9781461385608

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4613-8560-8_18

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().