Abstract
An inevitable difficulty in the study of memory error in retrospective surveys is the availability of an objective source of data or information against which to compare survey responses. Without this external source, the response reliability of an individual cannot be accurately assessed. The strength of this study, focused on modelling memory effects in migration history data, is a survey conducted in 1988 by the National Institute for Demographic Studies (I.N.E.D.), in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve (U.C.L., Belgium). This data allows insight into the reliability of responses obtained from an autobiographical retrospective survey, and highlights the demographic characteristics that may interact with memory effects in recall of migration history. In addition, the data obtained from this survey allows response reliability comparisons between gender, and also between joint interviewing of spouses and singular interviewing of spouses.
Résumé
L'une des difficultés dans l'étude des erreurs de mémoire dans les enquêtes rétrospectives est la disponibilité de données pour vérifier l'exactitude des réponses fournies. L'Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques (I.N.E.D.), en collaboration avec l'Institut de Démographie du L'Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, a répondu à ce besoin en élaborant une enquête spécifique basée sur la collecte d'histoires de vie, d'une part auprès de couples mariées, d'autre part auprès du registre belge de population. En employant des modèles loglinéaires, cette étude nous permet d'identifier les caractéristiques socio-démographiques liées à des oublis dans le récit des migrations successives. De plus, les données de cette enquête nous permettent de comparer l'efficacité du questionnement individuel auprès d'un membre d'un couple par rapport au questionnement simultané des conjoints.
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Auriat, N. Who forgets? An analysis of memory effects in a retrospective survey on migration history. Eur J Population 7, 311–342 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01796872
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01796872