Demographisches Monitoring-System (DMS)
Geburtenbarometer
Tomáš Sobotka, Maria Winkler-Dworak, Maria Rita Testa, Wolfgang Lutz, Dimiter Philipov, Henriette Engelhardt, Richard Gisser
“Geburtenbarometer”, a project of the Vienna Institute of Demography, is aiming to provide continuous monitoring of period fertility rates in Austria. It has two main objectives:
- monitoring recent fertility trends in Austria on a monthly basis
- providing a set of fertility indicators that are less affected by the ongoing change in fertility timing than the commonly used total fertility rates (TFR)
All fertility indicators are computed from the extracts of individual birth records supplied by Statistics Austria. Monthly monitoring of fertility allows the evaluation of most recent fertility trends in conjunction with the relevant information on changes in family policies or various socio-economic indicators. Furthermore, it also complements regular monthly reports on birth statistics that are compiled by Statistics Austria. We compute the ordinary TFR as well as the set of parity-progression ratios, based on birth interval (duration) fertility analysis. A summary indicator of fertility quantum derived from these parity progression ratios is termed the “period average parity” (PAP). Compared to the ordinary TFR, the PAP has two main advantages: it is relatively little affected by the changes in fertility timing and, being an indicator based on parity-specific approach, it is also more consistent with the sequential nature of childbearing and thus approximates more closely the family-building behaviour of real birth cohorts.
Further details, data, reports and supplementary material can be found here.
Information in German is available here
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