MPIDR Technical Report

An "R" package for the production of cohort fertility tables

Abstract

The construction of life tables is standard practice in mortality research, and methods are widely standardised and used. The use of fertility tables is less widespread, and there is little agreement on the methodology of their construction. However, production of standardised fertility tables may facilitate new fertility research and make a significant contribution to comparative fertility analysis. As part of the Human Fertility Database project, a methodology for the construction of cohort fertility tables has been developed and implemented as a package for the free statistical computing language and environment “R”. This Technical Report introduces the software package for calculation of cohort fertility tables. (Keywords: cohort fertility table, Human Fertility Database, R)