Projecting fertility by educational attainment: proof of concept of a new approach

dc.contributor.advisorMoultrie, Thomas
dc.contributor.authorNcube, Presley
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-09T12:53:29Z
dc.date.available2018-09-09T12:53:29Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.date.updated2018-08-16T10:06:18Z
dc.description.abstractThe United Nations Population Division publishes fertility projections for all countries in the World Population Prospects (WPP). These are the most widely used projections for planning and policy implementation. Despite a substantial body of literature that suggests education has a significant impact on fertility, these projections do not incorporate changes in the composition of the population by level of education. We therefore propose and implement a method that incorporates education composition change in projecting fertility. We investigate fertility differentials by level of education, then evaluate how education influences fertility independently; and finally, a model is fitted to project fertility rates by education levels. In both cases, the fertility rates by education level are then weighted by the IIASA educational attainment distributions to get the national fertility rates. These national fertility rates are in turn validated against the WPP fertility rates to evaluate how good the proposed method works. Fertility is high among the less educated relative to educated women. Education proves to be an important driver of fertility decline in Southern Africa. The proposed model is a good fit for countries with sufficient DHS data. However, there are other sources of data that are available, for example, the census data but we could not rely on them since they only give summary information. Validation was done to evaluate how good the model is working. This exercise produced consistent results with the observed fertility estimates. The percentage difference between the projected and WPP fertility estimates varied from 1 to 5 percent in Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In conclusion, the model can also be used for other countries. Furthermore, education composition change should be considered when projecting fertility since it has proven to be a significant driver of fertility change. Data quality and availability issues were a major limitation to our study and in future should be improved.
dc.identifier.apacitationNcube, P. (2018). <i>Projecting fertility by educational attainment: proof of concept of a new approach</i>. (). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Commerce ,Centre for Actuarial Research (CARE). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28438en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationNcube, Presley. <i>"Projecting fertility by educational attainment: proof of concept of a new approach."</i> ., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Commerce ,Centre for Actuarial Research (CARE), 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28438en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationNcube, P. 2018. Projecting fertility by educational attainment: proof of concept of a new approach. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Ncube, Presley AB - The United Nations Population Division publishes fertility projections for all countries in the World Population Prospects (WPP). These are the most widely used projections for planning and policy implementation. Despite a substantial body of literature that suggests education has a significant impact on fertility, these projections do not incorporate changes in the composition of the population by level of education. We therefore propose and implement a method that incorporates education composition change in projecting fertility. We investigate fertility differentials by level of education, then evaluate how education influences fertility independently; and finally, a model is fitted to project fertility rates by education levels. In both cases, the fertility rates by education level are then weighted by the IIASA educational attainment distributions to get the national fertility rates. These national fertility rates are in turn validated against the WPP fertility rates to evaluate how good the proposed method works. Fertility is high among the less educated relative to educated women. Education proves to be an important driver of fertility decline in Southern Africa. The proposed model is a good fit for countries with sufficient DHS data. However, there are other sources of data that are available, for example, the census data but we could not rely on them since they only give summary information. Validation was done to evaluate how good the model is working. This exercise produced consistent results with the observed fertility estimates. The percentage difference between the projected and WPP fertility estimates varied from 1 to 5 percent in Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In conclusion, the model can also be used for other countries. Furthermore, education composition change should be considered when projecting fertility since it has proven to be a significant driver of fertility change. Data quality and availability issues were a major limitation to our study and in future should be improved. DA - 2018 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2018 T1 - Projecting fertility by educational attainment: proof of concept of a new approach TI - Projecting fertility by educational attainment: proof of concept of a new approach UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28438 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/28438
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationNcube P. Projecting fertility by educational attainment: proof of concept of a new approach. []. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Commerce ,Centre for Actuarial Research (CARE), 2018 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28438en_ZA
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisher.departmentCentre for Actuarial Research (CARE)en_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Commerceen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherdemography
dc.subject.otheractuarial research
dc.titleProjecting fertility by educational attainment: proof of concept of a new approach
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationnameMPhil
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
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