Ð We use Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to compare ``poverty'' at two or more points in time within and between African countries. Our welfare measure is an index resulting from a factor analysis of various household characteristics, durables, and household headsÕ education. An advantage of this measure is that for intertemporal and intraregional comparisons, we need not rely on suspect p...

The Population Census is an important source of statistical information in most countries that is capable of producing reliable estimates of population characteristics for small geographic areas. One limitation of a census is that there are many population characteristics that cannot be collected due to respondent burden or cost. This means that statistical agencies have to conduct population b...

Male fertility has been largely neglected in demographic research (Coleman, 2000; Greene and Biddlecom, 2000; Zhang, 2011). Although the role of men in fertility decisions and changes has received increased attention since 1990s (DeRose, and Ezeh, 2005; Greene and Biddlecom, 2000; Zulu, 1997), the patterns, levels, changes and determinants of male fertility have remained an understudied researc...

The main source of data on birth weight in developing countries is statistics from health facilities, although most developing countries do not produce annual estimates of the incidence of low birth weight from these data. Such estimates would be subject to selection bias as the data are usually limited to babies born within health facilities, and therefore are representative of a subgroup that...

Malawi has one of the highest Contraceptive Prevalence Rates (CPR) in sub-Saharan Africa. However, fertility remains high and fertility decline is slow. This paper uses data from the 2000 and 2004 Demographic and Health Surveys to examine correlates of contraceptive use among currently married women in Malawi. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to establish the re...