[How consistent are personal data? Analysis of statements on the planning status of pregnancies].

Abstract

The consistency of responses on the planning status of births is analyzed using data from a longitudinal fertility survey being carried out by the Demographic Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Interviews were conducted in 1978 and 1981 with a sample of two marriage cohorts; in both sets of interviews a question was asked concerning the reaction to a pregnancy at the time the woman heard about it. "After linking the data for the pregnancies leading to first or second births, a consistency index suggested by Ryder and Westoff...was applied which distinguishes between random and nonrandom consistency. For the first births a proportion of 54.4% identical answers yields a consistency index of 38.0...; for second births a proportion of 53.7% identical answers results in [a] consistency index of 30.1...." Differential consistency is also analyzed according to selected socioeconomic and demographic variables as well as a variable measuring the correspondence of husband's and wife's desired family sizes in the opinion of the husband. (summary in ENG)