African Census Analysis Project (ACAP)

Africa continues to lack the data for direct estimates of infant and child mortality. Estimation of infant and child mortality in Africa has been based on Brass-type indirect methods. This paper seeks to utilise an extension of the Brass method proposed by Preston and Palloni—known as the “own-child” method— to estimate infant and child mortality using the 1990 Zambia national census data. The own-child method is able to map out the fertility history of women and therefore provides additional information about when children were born, and increasing the precision in estimating mortality. Additionally, this procedure is insensitive to declining fertility or irregular patterns of fertility that might have occurred in the past. The results provide a good basis for the application of the method for further mortality analysis using African census micro-data, especially differentials by subgroups within the population.