Consistency and Predictive Ability of Fertility Preference Indicators: Longitudinal Evidence from Rural India

ed births in a population; number of factors may influence the predictive value of the fertility preference indicators in India, the site of the current study. Because women have low status in Indian society, their ability to make important family decisions is limited. The cultural preference for sons over daughters may be an obstacle to women's ability to adhere to their fertility decisions. In addition, it is possible that household time pressures, the high level of illiteracy and a lack of understanding of the value of survey data may result in casual or inaccurate responses to survey questions. However, very little is known about the effectiveness of the two indicators in predicting fertility behavior in India. oreover, the extent to which individuals' responses to one preference indicator are consistent with their responses to the other-and whether including both indicators in demographic surveys is preferable to including just one of them-is not clear. This issue is of particular concern to the developers of large-scale demographic surveys, who face considerable pressure to obtain data on a large number of topics. Information on the relative utility of the two preference indicators can help guide survey designers in their efforts to maintain the questionnaires at a reasonable size.