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Are self-reported fertility preferences biased? Evidence from indirect elicitation methods

Valente, Christine; Toh, Wen Qiang; Jalingo, Inuwa; Lépine, Aurélie; de Paula, Aureo; Miller, Grant; (2024) Are self-reported fertility preferences biased? Evidence from indirect elicitation methods. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA , 121 (34) , Article e2407629121. 10.1073/pnas.2407629121. Green open access

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Abstract

Desired fertility measures are routinely collected and used by researchers and policy makers, but their self-reported nature raises the possibility of reporting bias. In this paper we test for the presence of such bias by comparing responses to direct survey questions with indirect questions offering a varying, randomized, degree of confidentiality to respondents in a socioeconomically diverse sample of Nigerian women (N = 6,256). We find that women report higher fertility preferences when asked indirectly, but only when their responses afford them complete confidentiality, not when their responses are simply blind to the enumerator. Our results suggest that there may be fewer unintended pregnancies than currently thought, and that the effectiveness of family planning policy targeting may be weakened by the bias we uncover. We conclude with suggestions for future work on how to mitigate reporting bias.

Type: Article
Title: Are self-reported fertility preferences biased? Evidence from indirect elicitation methods
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2407629121
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2407629121
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2024 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).
Keywords: Desired Fertility, List Experiment, Nigeria, Reporting Bias, Unintended Pregnancy
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Economics
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10194782
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