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THE CONSISTENCY AND VALIDITY OF REPRODUCTIVE ATTITUDES: EVIDENCE FROM MOROCCO

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1998

AKINRINOLA BANKOLE
Affiliation:
The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 120 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005
CHARLES F. WESTOFF
Affiliation:
Office of Population Research, Princeton University, 21 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA

Abstract

Information on reproductive attitudes is now routinely collected in fertility surveys in developing countries, and has become very important for understanding fertility behaviour. The quality of this information, however, is rarely assessed, partly due to lack of necessary data. In this paper, the recently completed panel survey in Morocco by the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) was used to investigate the consistency of reporting of ideal number of children, reproductive intentions and the planning status of the last birth. The validity of reproductive intentions for subsequent fertility behaviour was also examined. The findings indicate that the three measures of reproductive attitudes are subject to different degrees of measurement error. The measure of reproductive intentions is the most consistent of the three, followed by ideal number of children. The latter is much more consistent at the aggregate level than at the individual level. The reliability of the planning status of the last birth is marred, mainly by an unwanted child being reclassified as 'wanted' with time since the birth of the child. The reproductive intentions of women were also found to be positively related to their subsequent fertility.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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