Completeness of young fathers’ reports of fertility

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Lindberg, Laura Duberstein^{a; *} | Sonenstein, Freya Lund^a | Martinez, Gladys^a | Marcotte, John^a

Affiliations: [a] The Urban Institute, Washington, DC 20037, USA

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Laura Duberstein Lindberg, Urban Institute, 2100 M St., NW, Washington, DC 20037, USA. Tel.: +1 202 857-8507; E-mail: [email protected].

Abstract: Repeated findings that men underreport their fertility in social surveys raises concerns about the usefulness of survey data collected from men. We calculate the birth rate reported by unmarried males ages 15–19 in the National Survey of Adolescent Males. We also calculate the rate of fatherhood among adolescent males from maternal reports in the National Maternal and Infant Health Survey. Comparisons of birth rates to unmarried adolescent males, as measured by these maternal and paternal reports, show no statistically significant differences between the two sources of information. We conclude that it is possible to collect accurate fertility information from young men.

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-1998-0141

Journal: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 15-23, 1998