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Title: Comparing Data Quality of Fertility and First Sexual Intercourse Histories
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Wu, Lawrence L.
Martin, Steven P.
Long, Daniel A.
Comparing Data Quality of Fertility and First Sexual Intercourse Histories
CDE Working Paper No. 99-08 (October, 1998), Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, revised, April 1999.
Also: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/99-08.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Center for Demography and Ecology
Keyword(s): Age at First Intercourse; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Data Quality/Consistency; Demography; Fertility; Longitudinal Surveys; National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG); Research Methodology

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper evaluates the data quality of two demographic outcomes in light of hypotheses on respondent recall from the literature on survey methodology. An emerging consensus in this literature is that respondents engage in a process of recall; hence, retrieval of less well-remembered items (for example, the specific dates for the timing of distant events) may improve if survey designers precede such questions by others that are likely to be better remembered, if respondents are specifically instructed that such items are important, or if questions in parallel domains provide implicit or explicit memory prompts that aid the process of recall. An alternative but not mutually exclusive hypothesis is that recall of the timing of an event declines with duration unless the dating of an event is frequently "rehearsed." We investigate these hypotheses by comparing the quality of demographic data supplied by female respondents on selected event history outcomes across multiple nationally representative surveys. A first outcome concerns the interval between a first and second birth. We compare birth interval data using birth registration data using micro data from the Vital Statistics on Natality (VSN), the June Current Population Survey (CPS), the 1979 - 94 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). and the 1988 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Despite marked differences in survey design, we find relatively few differences in the quality of birth interval data across the four surveys. A second outcome is age at first sexual intercourse. Using data from the NLSY and NSFG, we analyze a form of partially missing data (respondent inability to recall the calendar month of intercourse) on age at first intercourse that occurs in both surveys. We find that inability to recall calendar month varies significantly with duration of recall, race and ethnicity, ability, early initiation of sexual activity, and some interview characteristics. Observed difference s by race and ethnicity narrow substantially when controlling for additional background factors available in the NLSY. In addition, we find important nonlinearities in respondent recall with duration, with results from both nonparametric and confirmatory analyses suggesting strikingly similar patterns of nonlinearities for both NLSY and NSFG respondents.
Bibliography Citation
Wu, Lawrence L., Steven P. Martin and Daniel A. Long. "Comparing Data Quality of Fertility and First Sexual Intercourse Histories." CDE Working Paper No. 99-08 (October, 1998), Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, revised, April 1999.