U.S. Fertility in Life Course Context: A Research Note on Using Census-Held Linked Administrative Records for Geographic and Sociodemographic Subgroup Estimation

Fertility is a life course process that is strongly shaped by geographic and sociodemographic subgroup contexts. In the United States, scholars face a choice: they can situate fertility in a life course perspective using panel data, which is typically representative only at the national level; or th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Demography 2024-04, Vol.61 (2), p.251-266
Main Authors: Root, Leslie, Stevenson, Amanda Jean, Genadek, Katie, Yeatman, Sara, Mollborn, Stefanie, Menken, Jane
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Administrative records
Age differences
Approved projects
Archives & records
Census
Censuses
Economics
Ethnic differences
Ethnicity
Female
Fertility
Heterogeneity
Humans
Life
Life Change Events
Life course
Panel data
Parents & parenting
Parity
Population Dynamics
Population Studies
Pregnancy
Race
Racial differences
Schedules
Sociodemographics
Sociology
Subgroups
Subnational
United States
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Fertility is a life course process that is strongly shaped by geographic and sociodemographic subgroup contexts. In the United States, scholars face a choice: they can situate fertility in a life course perspective using panel data, which is typically representative only at the national level; or they can attend to subnational contexts using rate schedules, which do not include information on life course statuses. The method and data source we introduce here, Census-Held Linked Administrative Records for Fertility Estimation (CLAR-FE), permits both. It derives fertility histories and rate schedules from U.S. Census Bureau–held data for the nation and by state, racial and ethnic subgroups, and the important life course status of parity. We generate three types of rates for 2000–2020 at the national and state levels by race and ethnicity: age-specific rates and both unconditional and conditional parity- and age-specific rates. Where possible, we compare these rates with those produced by the National Center for Health Statistics. Our new rate schedules illuminate state and racial and ethnic differences in transitions to parenthood, providing evidence of the important subgroup heterogeneity that characterizes the United States. CLAR-FE covers nearly the entire U.S. population and is available to researchers on approved projects through the Census Bureau's Federal Statistical Research Data Centers.
ISSN:0070-3370
1533-7790
1533-7790
DOI:10.1215/00703370-11234861