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Application of the Own-Children Method for estimating fertility by ethnic and religious groups in the UK

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Abstract

Fertility across and within countries is influenced by a number of socio-economic and cultural factors, including ethnicity and potentially religion. However, apart from census data, little information is available, at least in the UK, to estimate fertility rates and thus fertility trends by ethnic and religious groups between censuses. Previously, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) has been exploited to produce national total fertility rates (TFR) by ethnic groups up to 2001 using the reverse-survival Own-Children Method (OCM). Here the LFS–OCM is assessed and refined to improve accuracy and tested against official statistics. The LFS–OCM is compared with results obtained using more straightforward techniques based on Child-Woman Ratios using the same LFS data, and differences are discussed. The refined method is applied to produce recent fertility profiles by ethnic groups, including trends in the TFR and age-specific fertility rates, showing significant and decreasing differences between groups. Furthermore, the method allows us to reliably investigate TFR within one ethnic group by other criteria, as illustrated by differences in the TFR by religious affiliation of Indian women.

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Notes

  1. Studies are based on the self-determination of the persons within pre-defined ethnic categories in the censuses of population in the UK.

  2. ASFR (x) = Number of births to women aged x/Number of women aged x.

  3. TFR = Sum of ASFR (x) * age-group of x (e.g. *1 if single year, *5 if five year group).

  4. All other individual characteristics being equal, it is expected that fertility of adult migrants from a high-fertility country to a relatively low-fertility country is influenced by the reproductive norms of their society of upbringing. Therefore, fertility of those migrants is expected to be higher than that in the UK but may be lower than in their country of origin owing to some exposure to new conditions and norms, and more so with increasing duration of settlement in the UK. The second generation in the UK is expected to converge closer to the UK fertility average profile.

  5. The relationship codes used for the matching process within the household are: 1-head of Household (HoH), 2-spouse or partner of HoH, 3-child or stepchild of HoH, 4-Parent of HoH, 5-grandparent of HoH, 6-grandchild of HoH, 7-Brother/sister of HoH, 8-parent-in-law of HoH, 9-daughter/son in law of HoH, 10-sister in-law, 12-other.

  6. Research on health inequality by ethnicity suggests that death rate patterns are likely to differ across ethnic groups. Recently, Rees and Wohland (2008) have proposed a method to estimate mortality by ethnic group using illness ratios. In June 2008 the ONS began publishing new statistics on infant mortality by ethnicity in England and Wales showing differences across ethnic groups, with particularly higher death rates to Pakistani and Black Caribbean infants.

  7. Some variability in the sex ratio of births to women based on their country of birth was also identified by Dubuc and Coleman (2007) but cannot be applied to ethnic groups without caution. Furthermore, because mortality rates for the whole population were adopted here, it was appropriate to apply the average UK sex ratio at birth.

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Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to John Haskey and Paul Norman for their helpful comments and suggestions. I am thankful to David Coleman for his suggestions and our stimulating discussions. This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK (Grant RES-163-25-0049, ESRC-UPTAP project).

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  1. Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford, Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2ER, UK

    Sylvie Dubuc

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Dubuc, S. Application of the Own-Children Method for estimating fertility by ethnic and religious groups in the UK. J Pop Research 26, 207–225 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-009-9020-7

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