Reconstructing birth histories using linked household data and the 1911 Census fertility survey
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21372670 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emma Diduch (0000-0002-5166-8735, University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-15 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Population Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0032-4728 • E-ISSN: 1477-4747 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00324728.2026.2681475 |
| PMID | 42367151 |
| OpenAlex | W7166582613 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
Full birth histories that enable analysis of mothers' ages at birth and birth intervals by parity are rare in historical data. Partial birth histories can be obtained from retrospective fertility surveys and census data that record the numbers of children ever born, children deceased, and ages of surviving co-resident children. In a 1988 article published in Population Studies, Luther and Cho proposed a method for reconstructing full birth histories by probabilistically imputing the ages of deceased and non-co-resident children, and in a 2020 article in Historical Methods, Hacker extended this method to historical census data from the United States. In this paper I further adapt the reconstruction method using a sample from the 1911 Census of England and Wales and census records linked from 1881 onwards; this reduces the number of missing observations in the partial birth histories. Birth histories based on linked data particularly improve estimates of duration-specific marital fertility for women who married and had children more than 15 years before the survey date
Birth rate · Census · Demographic analysis · Fertility · Historical demography · Marital status · Population · Population statistics · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
Changing Family Size in England and Wales
The Record Linking Glass Ceiling. Applying Automated Methods to the Census and Women’s Marriage Records, 1881–1911
Fertility decline in the United States, 1850-1930
A new strategy for linking U.S. historical censuses
The Ipums multigenerational longitudinal panel
The creation of Life-M
Testing child-woman ratios and the own-children method on the 1900 Sweden census
Reconstruction of birth histories using children ever born and children surviving data from the 1900 and 1910 U.S. censuses
Revisiting the Fertility Transition in England and Wales
Census-derived estimates of fertility by duration since first marriage in the Republic of Korea
The Impact of Multiple Births on Fertility
Methodology for the Measurement of Current Fertility From Population Data on Young Children
Did migration alter the path of the demographic transition for French Canadians in the United States
Adapting the Own Children Method to allow comparison of fertility between populations with different marriage regimes
Reconstruction of Birth Histories from Census and Household Survey Data
Patterns underlying fertility schedules
The Evolution of Models in Historical Demography
The geography of early childhood mortality in England and Wales, 1881-1911
| Highly cited | No |
|---|