A Bayesian model for the reconstruction of education- and age-specific fertility rates: An application to African and Latin American countries

Abstract

Consistent and reliable time series of education-and age-specific fertility rates for the past are difficult to obtain in developing coun tries, although they are needed to evaluate the impact of women’s education on fertility along periods and cohorts. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian framework to reconstruct age-specific fertility rates by level of education using prior information from the birth history module of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and the UN World Population Prospects. In our case study regions, we reconstruct age-and education-specific fertility rates which are consistent with the UN age specific fertility rates by four levels of education for 50 African and Latin American countries from 1970 to 2020 in five-year steps. Our results show that the Bayesian approach allows for estimating reliable education-and age-specific fertility rates using multiple rounds of the DHS surveys. The time series obtained confirm the main findings of the literature on fertility trends, and age and education specific differentials.