Estimating number of children in villages of Daghestan: a comparison of data sources
The paper deals with different ‘local’ sources of data on the number of children and fertility in the Republic of Dagestan (North Caucasus, Russia). A study of ‘local’ sources on fertility in comparison with census data in Dagestan is necessary for two reasons. First, the region is known to have serious problems with official demographic statistics, so that all alternative sources should be considered. Second, different parts of Dagestan demonstrate outstanding diversity with respect to fertility, which needs to be studied and explained. The paper discusses the results of a field study undertaken in Dagestan in 2015. In the course of that study, data on the number of children born in different years between 2000 and 2014 were collected from local administrations, medical institutions and schools in ten villages of Dagestan. The data of the three sources never fully agreed with each other or with census data, but showed regular, statistically significant correspondences. We hypothesize about possible reasons for the differences between the data of the sources on the basis of our interviews with local officials in the villages under study. We argue that the data of medical institutions and schools should be the most reliable. We also compare data of local administrations and medical institutions on the number of women of different age groups and study the possibility of using these data for calculating fertility rates (crude birth rate, total fertility rate, etc.) for different parts of Dagestan, in order to establish the differences between their fertility dynamics.