Measuring low fertility: rethinking demographic methods

argues that the timely use of such measures would have allowed demographers to detect the temporary character of both the baby boom and baby bust, thus avoiding the sometimes ridiculous performance of fertility forecasting and analysis during this period. 2 The relationship between life table measures of fertility and tempo adjustment is a recurrent topic in much of the recent debate on the subject (N Bhrolchin, 1992; Rallu and (footnote continued) produced by Ryder but which only uses past information in the cohort completion process. They use economic models to forecast future fertility with the caveat that these models also require forecasting of the economic series themselves. This concept of tempo effects remains different from that of B-F in any case, since the idea is still connected to a translation concept irrelevant for the B-F counterfactual.