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Fertility Preferences [message #1696] Sun, 30 March 2014 07:58
bumicamara is currently offline  bumicamara
Messages: 1
Registered: March 2014
Location: Germany
Member
REVISION
QUESTION No. 712

I work with DHS from a number of African countries where polygamy is a common. The fertility preference question for male and female is asked in exactly the same way:
"If you could go back to the
time you did not have any
children and could choose
exactly the number of children
to have in your whole life, how
many would that be?"
While this is informative in comparing preferences of monogamous couples, it provides less information when we compare preference of a wife in polygyny to her husband's.
If i want to examine whether fertility decisions are imposed on the wife or not, this preference information cant help in cases of polygamous unions. In fact, in most cases preference of husbands are 3 to 4times that of a wife. Unfortunately, this is more reliable that the alternative question that ask the woman if her preference matches those of her husband.
For men in polygamy, this question needs a follow-up question that asks whether the figure given above represents preference per wife?


Bumi Camara
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