[The reliability of the expectation (not) to have a child within three years]

The author examines the reliability of fertility expectations in the Netherlands over a three-year period starting in 1982. The data are from the 1982 and 1985 Netherlands Fertility Surveys. "On the individual level the expectations of 86% of all women turned out to be consistent with the demographic behaviour in the following three years. Of the women who had expected to have a child 63% had had one. Of the women who had not expected to have a child 92% indeed did not.... On the aggregate level the forecast was reasonably accurate: 21% of all women had expected to have a child whereas 20% had had one. Obviously the forecast error is larger for some categories of women than for others: the most deviant are the cohabiting women who show a rather large overestimation. But generally speaking the results of this analysis are promising for the use of short-term birth expectations in population forecasts." (SUMMARY IN ENG)