Swicegood C G, Morgan S P, Rindfuss R R
Demography. 1984 Feb;21(1):19-33.
This paper addresses the comparability of data from eight national fertility surveys conducted in the United States between 1955 and 1980. We examine the extent to which substantive conclusions about the levels and correlates of the timing of first birth vary across these data sources by comparing samples of women who were eligible to be included in more than one study. Results obtained from Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and logistic regression analyses of several measures of timing indicate few study effects. Thus findings based on data from one survey can be replicated with comparable data from another. One notable exception is the relationship between contraceptive use prior to the first birth and the timing of that birth. The contraceptive variable appears to be poorly measured, leading to unstable estimates of the relationship. In general, our results suggest: (1) the feasibility of pooling data from the various surveys when modeling delayed childbearing; and (2) reasonable accuracy in assessing trends in the timing of first birth from multiple data sources.
本文探讨了1955年至1980年间在美国进行的八项全国生育调查数据的可比性。我们通过比较有资格纳入多项研究的女性样本，研究了关于初育时间水平及其相关因素的实质性结论在这些数据源之间的差异程度。对几种时间测量方法进行普通最小二乘法（OLS）和逻辑回归分析得到的结果表明，研究效应很少。因此，基于一项调查数据得出的结果可以用另一项调查的可比数据进行复制。一个显著的例外是首次生育前的避孕措施使用与该次生育时间之间的关系。避孕变量的测量似乎不准确，导致该关系的估计不稳定。总体而言，我们的结果表明：（1）在对延迟生育进行建模时合并各种调查数据的可行性；（2）从多个数据源评估初育时间趋势时具有合理的准确性。
