Populatioin research centre university of groningen.

Thesis Report.

ABSTRACT: Many reproductive health surveys face difficulties in measuring age and duration. Age or duration heaping is the phenomenon that certain dates, ages or durations are overrepresented. The measuring of events is influenced by the perception of time, both of the interviewer and the respondents. The knowledge of someone's age is a culturally controlled phenomenon, and is determined by attitudes towards age. In this paper, an analysis of two datasets shows the amount of heaping in two reproductive health surveys. After this analysis, the results o a survey are displayed, that was carried out in six villages in rural South India. In this survey a local time-path calendar was used in order to try to reduce duration heaping in the length of proximate determinants of birth intervals. Differences in reporting between women of different socio-economic backgrounds were considered. The calendar has turned out to be very useful in reducing duration heaping, especially in conducted in rural settings. Keywords:Heaping, Time, Methodology, Health surveys

Eng.