4.10 Fertility

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The Mature Women surveys contain two types of information on fertility. In most surveys, information is collected about each child living in the respondent’s household at the time of the interview. This information is found in the “Household Record” and includes the child’s age, date of birth, and sex. Post-1976 surveys specified whether the child was an adopted son or daughter or an adopted son or daughter by marriage. For more information about data collected in the household record (also called the “Household Roster”), see the “Household Composition” section of this guide.

Household record information only provides a partial picture of each respondent’s fertility because it does not capture children given up for adoption, children who died, and children who reside outside the home. To remedy this problem, a series of questions asked in the 1977 survey reviewed each respondent’s total fertility. This series collected detailed information about each of up to 19 children ever born to the respondent and about each of up to 5 adopted children or children from an earlier marriage of her husband. Information available for each child includes sex; date of birth; life status; whether the child was still residing in the respondent’s home and, if not, the month and year the child left the household; the child’s school enrollment status; and the highest grade he or she had completed.

To ensure that researchers can create a complete fertility record for each respondent, the 1982 survey asked for information about any children born or adopted since the 1977 questions were fielded. Since the women were ages 45-59 in 1982, combining these two sections likely provides a complete record of child bearing and rearing for each respondent; any additional new children should be included on the household record.

To provide researchers with a clearer picture of the socio-economic status of the respondent’s children, a special set of questions was fielded in 1986. These questions asked the respondent to describe the marital and fertility history of her four oldest biological or adopted children. The series provides information for each child on sex, age, age at first marriage, number of marriages, the way the first marriage ended, number of children, highest grade attended, and highest degree received.

In addition to these large sections, information was gathered during select surveys on the total number of children ever born to the respondent, the number of children of specific age ranges living with her at the time of the interview, and the number of children she had either adopted or who had come to live in her household from her husband’s previous marriage.

Related Variables: The “Intrafamily Transfers” section, administered in 1999, collected information about transfers of time and money between respondents and their children. Some demographic data were gathered as part of this collection. For more information, interested users should refer to the “Transfers” section of this guide.

Survey Instruments: Fertility questions can be found within the “Marital History, Fertility, and Other Family Background,” “Children,” or “Family Background” sections of the questionnaires.

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