Child survivorship estimation: methods and data analysis

"The past 20 years have seen extensive elaboration, refinement, and application of the original Brass method for estimating infant and child mortality from child survivorship data. This experience has confirmed the overall usefulness of the methods beyond question, but it has also shown that...estimates must be analyzed in relation to other relevant information before useful conclusions about the level and trend of mortality can be drawn.... This article aims to illustrate the importance of data analysis through a series of examples, including data for the Eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak, Mexico, Thailand, and Indonesia. Specific maneuvers include plotting completed parity distributions and 'time-plotting' mean numbers of children ever born from successive censuses. A substantive conclusion of general interest is that data for older women are not so widely defective as generally supposed."