April 26, 2018 | News | Congratulations!

PAA award for MPIDR poster on the quality of self-reported education data in Brazil

MPIDR researchers Marília Nepomuceno in front of her prize-winning poster on the quality of self-reported education data in Brazil at the PAA 2018 in Denver, Colorado. © Marília Nepomuceno

MPIDR-researcher Marília Nepomuceno won the PAA poster award for the presentation of her research on the quality of self-reported education in Brazil.

Marília Nepomuceno, who works in the MPIDR research group on lifespan inequalities, was awarded out of 85 researchers in the PAA session "Population, Development and Environment; Data and Methods".

The main question of her poster (PDF File, 268 kB) is: "How accurate is self-reported education in Brazil?"

To the extent that education is an important variable in demographic analysis, it is essential to measure it properly. In Brazil, the literature has neglected the possible effects of education misstatement in demographic, social and economic studies.

Therefore, Nepomuceno's goal was to show evidence of education misstatement by evaluating education reporting by adults in Brazil between the 1991 and 2000 censuses. To assess the quality of education data she calculated the implicit mortality measures by education from intercensal survivorship ratios.

The results gave clear evidence that education census information is inaccurate, and inconsistent between censuses in Brazil.

"This study is an important step to gain a better understanding of education data quality in Brazil, " says Marília Nepomuceno. However, she adds, the magnitude of various types of errors on education data, and the relevance of these issues to bias population analyses remain unkown.

In order to answer these pressing open questions, Marília Nepomuceno wants to continue this project together with Cássio Turra from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil.

The annual meeting of the Population Association of America (PAA) is one of the largest and most important meetings of the demographic research community worldwide.