Misreporting in rural fertility data: an analysis of husband-wife disagreement
Vlassoff, C.; Vlassoff, M.
Journal of Biosocial Science 10(4): 437-444
1978
ISSN/ISBN: 0021-9320 PMID: 721849 Document Number: 440443
Two independent, concurrent demographic surveys in rural India, one male, the other female, were used to examine misreporting of children born among 223 couples common to both samples. Husband-wife disagreements were checked in detail and characteristics of the errors and of the misreporters themselves were analyzed. Forgetting of dead children was the main cause of mistaken reporting. Another type of error was sex-related: men, but not women, confused fetal deaths with live births. Only age appeared to be a determining factor in male misreporting. Traditional attitudes and overall response reliability were more important than age in explaining female errors. No significant relationships between faulty reporting and socio-economic status or family size were established. Suggestions were made for minimizing fertility misreporting in surveys of rural, illiterate populations.