The IFAMID team worked closely with the Global Family Change project lead by Hans-Peter Kohler (University of Pennsylvania), and did so to construct a unified framework that harmonizes sub-national regions for all its 300 plus DHS surveys. We were able to match variables from other external data sources, such as the barometer surveys, to the DHS surveys. This was a major contribution where the team made the technical script publicly available. The implication is that information from other data sources can be easily merged, but importantly, it can be done so at level of sub-national regions. This is a significant benefit for statistical analysis, since with this data source we can assess variation within country, and as surveys have been repeated over time, we can control for fixed country and regional effects. To exemplify, with this data, we estimated the effects of corruption, as derived from the Afro-barometer survey, on individuals’ contraceptive behaviour. Whereas corruption is clearly detrimental for the take-up of modern contraception, we also find that it has important implications for social inequality. In the realm of this project, we also developed ways of matching surveys by using geocoded locations. For instance, respondents in the DHS surveys are geocoded, and in several applications we matched this code with all Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) from China. In this way, we are able to get unprecedented precision of the effect of Chinese FDI on demographic behaviour and trends.
The Trustlab project as described in previous reports, successfully implemented, for the first time, a representative sample of incentivized trust games. It showed that otherwise assumed mechanisms, are debatable. The survey provided new insights to the North-South divide in Italy of economic progress. It also integrated measures of fertility intentions, and thereby was the first to establish the triangular relationship between trust, uncertainty and resilience, and it's relationship with reported fertility intentions.
The final part of IFAMID implemented the Family Goals Study, a comparative survey across key countries to establish cultural differences in people's assessment of the meaning of the family. It touches on the family as a fundamental concept and explores differences across cultures. We find that the family is very much a universal concept and that people across cultures share common views about what makes a family successful. However, there are important differences. The study was based on a conjoint analysis which is a novelty in demographic analysis and shows promise for how one can approach comparative demography.
