From birth expectations to birth forecasts: A partial‐adjustment approach

As women's expectations about their own future fertility tend to deviate systematically from realizations, these expectations cannot be used directly for forecasting purposes. This paper discusses a partial‐adjustment approach for deriving forecasts from the expectations. The sensitivity of the results to various assumptions is examined. Empirical results obtained for the Netherlands seem promising.

Key words:

• Birth expectations
• fertility
• population forecasts
• partial adjustment model

Notes

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics. The author gratefully acknowledges useful comments of an anonymous referee.