Notes
A series of questions were asked of women aged 12 years or above to obtain information on fertility. The questions enquired as to the number of live births, the number of children still living, the month and year in which the first child was born and, for women less than 50 years of age, the number of live births in the preceding 12 months (since 10 October 1995).
The four variables included in final census data are:
No. of children ever born
No. of children still living
No. of births in last 12 months
Age of mother at birth of first child.
If no response was provided to the first question on children ever born, the subsequent responses were set to Not applicable. This was done to improve analysis of the questions which followed as it is not possible to interpret them accurately without the response to the first, key question. The questionnaire included the instruction ‘Please include her children who are not living with her and those who have died’.
Responses of up to 30 were coded for the number of children ever born. Responses greater than 30 were set to Unspecified.
