Estimating total fertility rates from population pyramids

Matt Hauer and Carl Schmertmann (both on Twitter) have just published a new paper that promises to be a game changer in population studies. They devised a method to estimate total fertility rates using inputs as minimal as the age/sex structure of a population. They tested the accuracy of the method using 2400+ fertility schedules and the result is incredibly accurate. Matt has written a thread on Twitter summarizing some of the key aspects of the paper.  The code to replicate the paper is here and an ungated preprint of the paper can be downloaded here.

Hauer, M., & Schmertmann, C. (2018). Population pyramids yield accurate estimates of total fertility rates. Demography. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-019-00842-x  []

Abstract:

The primary fertility index for a population, the total fertility rate (TFR), cannot be calculated for many areas and periods because it requires disaggregation of births by mother’s age. Here we discuss a flexible framework for estimating TFR using inputs as minimal as a population pyramid. We develop five variants, each with increasing complexity and data requirements. We test accuracy across a diverse set of data sources that comprise more than 2,400 fertility schedules with known TFR values, including the Human Fertility Database, Demographic and Health Surveys, U.S. counties, and nonhuman species. We show that even the simplest and least accurate variant has a median error of only 0.09 births per woman over 2,400 fertility schedules, suggesting accurate TFR estimation over a wide range of demographic conditions. We anticipate that this framework will extend fertility analysis to new subpopulations, periods, geographies, and even species. To demonstrate the framework’s utility in new applications, we produce subnational estimates of African fertility levels, reconstruct historical European TFRs for periods up to 150 years before the collection of detailed birth records, and estimate TFR for the United States conditional on race and household income.

Estimated TFR from Population Pyramids. We compare the performance of five variants against observed TFRs using data from the Human Fertility Data, Demographic and Health Surveys, the US Census Bureau, and various non-human species.

Assorted Links

1. Interactive visualization of all the world's flight paths, by Callum Prentice
   
   
   
   
2. Chile is using mobile data to find out how and why women use the city differently than men
   
   
   
   
3. The Actual Voices of Enslaved Black People Recorded From The 1800s, via Danilo Freire
   
   
   
   
4. A research agenda on geospatial big data and cartography, by Anthony C. Robinson et al
   
   
   
   
5. Researchers produce images of people’s faces from their genomes
   
   
   
   
6. Alex Singleton, Seth Spielman and David Folch have a new book called Urban Analytics. The book looks really promising! I haven't had the chance to read it need to work on my phd thesis and it is packed with GitHub resources that you can access here
   
   
   
   
7. A photographer has documented life in this Chinese square for 30 years. via Peter D Smith
   
   
   
   
8. Does causation imply correlation?
   
   
   
   
9. The transition from more than 6 to fewer than 3 children per woman took the UK almost a century. This change took 26 years to happen in Brazil, and only 11 years in China - Max Roser (ht Leo Monasterio)

Assorted Links

1. Jack Caldwell has passed away
   
   
   
   
2. Urban development and air pollution: evidence from a global panel of cities
   
   
   
   
3. The easiest way to simplify your shape file , making it look like a child's drawing (ht Leo Monasterio)
   
   
   
   
4. Fertility rate plummets in India via MR
   
   
   
   
5. Is this the oldest-ever 3D map of transit ridership? 
   
   
   
   
6. Hypnotizing frozen soap bubbles
   
   
   
   
7. Garry Kasparov talking about the The limits of human performance and artificial intelligence
   
   
   
   
8. Great infographic showing Language Families 

Assorted Links

1. The domestication of Amazonia before European conquest via Leo Monasterio
   
   
2. A city of Pure imagination: great visual work of Víctor Enrich
   
   
3. Places in the US with streets named after Martin Luther King Jr via Geoff Boeing
   
   
4. paper: Based on CBA analysis, the cost of car driving in Copenhagen is more than six times higher than cycling
   
   
5. This will change your internet  porn  habits sooner than you think
   
   
6. Where the population of Europe is growing – and where it’s declining
   
   
7. The capital of Indonesia is the world's largest city without a subway. via Deden Rukmana
   
   
8. Mapping the electrification of India over the past 20 years via Tanvi Misra
   
   
9. John Lennon jams with Eric Clapton, Keith Richards & Mitch Mitchell
   
   
10. Fertility in Jpan and USA, 1947-2010 via Randy Olson
     * Bonus: It is ridiculously simple to create animated charts (.gifs) in R using gganimate

Sex is another good reason to stop climate change, apparently

Hotter temperatures reduce sex drive and lower birth rates, according to a recent study published as a NBER Working Paper. There is a good summary of the paper here. I kind of liked the conclusion in the abstract.

Barreca, A., Deschenes, O., & Guldi, M. (2015). Maybe Next Month? Temperature Shocks, Climate Change, and Dynamic Adjustments in Birth Rates (No. w21681). NBER Working Paper.

Abstract:

Dynamic adjustments could be a useful strategy for mitigating the costs of acute environmental shocks when timing is not a strictly binding constraint. To investigate whether such adjustments could apply to fertility, we estimate the effects of temperature shocks on birth rates in the United States between 1931 and 2010. Our innovative approach allows for presumably random variation in the distribution of daily temperatures to affect birth rates up to 24 months into the future. We find that additional days above 80 °F cause a large decline in birth rates approximately 8 to 10 months later. The initial decline is followed by a partial rebound in births over the next few months implying that populations can mitigate the fertility cost of temperature shocks by shifting conception month. This dynamic adjustment helps explain the observed decline in birth rates during the spring and subsequent increase during the summer. The lack of a full rebound suggests that increased temperatures due to climate change may reduce population growth rates in the coming century. As an added cost, climate change will shift even more births to the summer months when third trimester exposure to dangerously high temperatures increases. Based on our analysis of historical changes in the temperature-fertility relationship, we conclude air conditioning could be used to substantially offset the fertility costs of climate change.

Where do women have Maternity leave and Who pays for it

Where do women get Maternity leave and Who pays for it Cc @simonhedlin @lisawade #maternityleave pic.twitter.com/Jv5oRSU3Dr

— Urban Demographics (@UrbDemogrphics) September 19, 2015

China is moving to a Two-Child Policy

 Chris Buckley, reporting for the NYT.

China will allow all couples to have two children, a Communist Party leadership meeting decided on Thursday, bringing an end to decades of restrictive policies that limited most urban families to one child.

The announcement came after the party’s Central Committee concluded a four-day meeting in a heavily guarded hotel in western Beijing where it approved proposals for China’s next five-year development plan, which starts next year. The terse announcement from Xinhua, the state news agency, about the sharp shift in family planning policy gave no details.

Related Links:

• China and US populations compared 
• Has ChinaReached the Lewis Turning Point? more here.
• Demographies of China

Assorted links on Fertility

1. Fertility decisions and the escape from slavery
   
   
2.  The effects of social interactions on fertility decline: An agent-based simulation
   
   
3. "Around 1 million babies are likely to have been born to Erasmus programme couples since 1987"
   
   
4. How does the UK's fertility rate compare to other nations?
   
   
5. Probabilities of failing birth control methods
   
   
6. Development and fertility in Brazil: fertility reversion for more developed municipalities? , Paper by Bernardo Queiroz
   
   
7. The causal relationship between female labor supply and fertility in the USA
   
   
8. Data! The Human Fertility Database (HFD) and the Human Fertility Collection, organized by the Max Planck and the Vienna Inst. of Demography (via Carl Schmertmann )

[image credit: Javier Pérez]

Assorted links

1. The daily routines of creative people
   
   
2. 15 Super Thin Buildings
   
   
3. Data-driven insights to optimize the use of public transport, by Urban Engines
   
   
4. Heterogeneity in Expected Longevities
   
   
5. Why are teen births down in the US? Answer: Postponement 
   
   
6. Tokyo's massive flood prevention system
   
   
7. Things I would rather be doing
   
   
8. 10 things statistics taught us about big data analysis

[image credit: Simply Statistics]

Assorted links

1. Contribute to a survey on the connection between the built environment and personal health: It took me 3 minutes to answer this short questionnaire. The survey is organized by our loyal reader Benjamin Littenberg.
   
   
2. Why do birth rates peak at different times in different places?
   
   
3. Longer commutes in Britain (via Peter Gordon)
   
   
4. An ageing economy will be a slower and more unequal one
   
   
5. Great piece by Simon Jenkins on the coming Mega Events in Rio
   
   
6. Space Syntax of street connections in the Greater South East of England
   
   
7. Gary S. Becker has passed away.  Many interesting links about his work at MR
   
   
8. The Pollution Burden in California by census tracts (via Stephen Miller)

[image credit: LA Times]

Paid Maternal Leave Around the World

Via The New York Times

Related Links:

• Economic incentives and the timing of births: evidence from the German parental benefit
• 4 million Euros for New Demography Programme on Fertility
• Has Divorce Become a Pro-Natal Force in Europe
• The relationship between Civil Unions and fertility in France

Assorted links

1. 100 things we didn't know last year (via Bernardo L Queiroz)
   
   
2. Quantifying the Advantage of Looking Forward
   
   
3. The Economis: interactive guide to the world's housing markets
   
   
4. Where UK immigrants were born: 1951-2011
   
   
5. Brazil has more ATMs than any other country
   
   
6. The Google Art Project
   
   
7. Astrology and birth rates in East Asia
   
   
8. National Geographic Photo Contest 2013
   
   
9. The 52 publications most cited by sociologists in 2013 (Based on citation analysis of 1,166 articles published in 39 sociological journals)
   
   
10. Spatial Patterns of Household Car Ownership in London

click on the image to enlarge it

[image credit: Meead Saberi ]

 

Assorted links

1. A webpage to help you Convert #Words to #Pages
   
   
2. Urban density and climate change: a STIRPAT analysis using city-level data
   
   
3. Using R to analyze Human Mortality and Fertility databases? (via Emilio Zagheni)
   
   
4. The NSA is Coming to Town
   
   
5. First Detailed Map of Global Deforestation  [paper, interactive map]
   
   
6. The Day Google Became Skynet
   
   
7. Diversity of aging across the tree of life -A 46-Species Comparison (via BL Queiroz)

[Click on the image to enlarge it]

[Image Credit: Jones et al. at Nature, 2013]

Assorted Links

1. Road pricing: What’s not to love?
   
   
2. Top 20 things politicians need to know about science and Top 20 things scientists need to know about policy-making (ht Paulo Nascimento)
   
   
3. Turning-point years in history according to the most frequent dates used dissertation titles
   
   
4. Up all night to get data, a music parody
   
   
5. San Francisco Aerial Views. 1937-1938
   
   
6. Urban street networks, a comparative analysis of ten European cities
   
   
7. Declining fertility rates will transform the Asian family
   
   
8. Coldest spot on Earth identified by satellite (minus 93.2 Cº)
   
   
9. Snapshot: Global Migration
   
   
10. African polygamy over space and time

Assorted Links

1. What if all hte ice melted?
   
   
2. A Gray Future for the BRICsLike OCR for maps: Automating Extracting GIS Data from Scanned Maps (via @QUBDH @digitalurban)
   
   
3. Female Employment and Fertility in China
   
   
4. Chinese food Density by Neighborhood in NYC (via Untapped Cities)
   
   
5. Perfecting bike share schemes via (HumanScaleCity)
   
   
6. Golf Ball 70,000fps 150mph
   
   
7. Autonomous vehicles and self-driving buses closer to reallity (via MR)
   
   
8. Map of scientific collaboration between researchers (old stuff but still interesting)

Women's Fertility and Educational Level

Some not so new evidence showing that the old relationship between class and birth rates has been inverted (via MR). There is a good debate on this topic contrasting period fertility rates with cohort fertility rates here.

[Image Credit: Pew Research Center]

Related Links:

• Media Exposure and Reproductive Behavior
• The coming baby boom?
• Fertility and Mortality estimates for small areas in Brazil
• Record Share of New Mothers Are College Educated

Assorted Links

1. The world's busiest airline routes (Rio-São Paulo ranks in second)
   
   
2. A list of R packages, by popularity
   
   
3. What is behind the differences in school performance? PISA
   
   
4. What are the big trends shaping transport? (via D. Levinson)
   
   
5. The relationship between fertility rates and female education
   
   
6. A map showing recent protests in Brazil (via Ricardo Dagnino)
   
   
7. 22 Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Totally Differently From Each Other
   
   
8. Mapping Twitter demographics

Fertility and Mortality estimates for small areas in Brazil

It is really nice to see an increasing number of good studies/publications written by/with Brazilian demographers. Here are two recent papers that might be of interest for some readers.

• Queiroz, BL; Lima, EC; Freire, FH; Gonzaga, MR. Adult mortality estimates for small areas in Brazil, 1980—2010: a methodological approach. The Lancet. 2013.
  
  
• Schmertmann, CP;  Cavenaghi, SM; Assunção, RM; Potter, JE. Bayes plus Brass: Estimating total fertility for many small areas from sparse census data. Population Studies. 2013. Project Website.

A few more papers:

• Spatial Demography: an opportunity to improve policy making at diverse decision levels
• The Changing Impact of Family Size on Adolescents’ Schooling: Assessing the Exogenous Variation in Fertility Using Twins in Brazil
• Changes in test scores distribution for students of the fourth grade in Brazil: A relative distribution analysis for the years 1997–2005
• Age, education, and earnings in the course of Brazilian development: Does composition matter?

Assorted Links (overloaded edition)

1. Darkened Shanghai
   
   
2. One of the new big question marks for economic demographers
   
   
3. Latin America has more mobile phones than people, seriously!?
   
   
4. Observations on US Urbanization: 1920-2010
   
   
5. How much do teachers cost? (via Drunkeynesian)
   
   
6. Two Research Fellowship positions in Demography at Oxford
   
   
7. Self-recommending -  Tracking the Wider Impacts of the São Paulo Subway System
   
   
8. Call of dutty, or how far can a coutry go to promote fertility
   
   
9. An excellent advice for young researchers
   
   
10. Compare Global Cities on your iPad
    
    
11. U.S. Life Expectancy Map: The Gender Gap (via @Demografia_CSIC)

Media Exposure and Reproductive Behavior

Three papers discussing the effects of media exposure on reproductive behavior.

Ferrara et al (2008). Soap Operas and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil. IDB Working Paper Nº 533 *

Chong and La Ferrara (2010). Television and divorce: Evidence from Brazilian novelas. J. European Economic Association.

Westoff and Koffman (2011). The Association of Television and Radio with Reproductive Behavior. Population and Development Review.

*A  funny  curious finding: "the likelihood that the twenty most popular names chosen by parents for their newborns would include one or more names of the main characters of novelas aired that year was about 33 percent if the area where parents lived received the Globo signal and only 8.5 percent if it did not."

Related Links:

• Baby Deficit and Economic Crises
• Fertility Transition in Brazil
• Birth rate plummets in Brazil
• Updated: How Electricity, Development, and TV Reduce Fertility