Estimating the Co-variates of Age at Marriage and First Birth

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Abstract
How best to estimate the co-variates of age at marriage or age at 1st birth is explored. Some investigators have approached this problem by estimating separate schedules for different classifications of the population. Such attempts cannot have a truly multivariate flavor since cell sizes become small as ambitious cross-classification is attempted. Two competing models, one an extension of that proposed by Coale and McNeil and the other, proportional hazards, arising from the analysis of failure time data are examined. Their performance is contrasted on WFS [World Fertility Survey] data for Colombia. Both methods perform well; which is chosen depends upon the purpose of the analysis and the type of data available. Specifically, the proportional hazards method cannot be applied to data on ever-married women only and cannot be used to project the experience of incomplete cohorts. Coale and McNeil''s extended model is harder to estimate since software is not so readily available.

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