Fertility Data cdc vs acs

I have noticed a big discrepancy( which only increased post covid) in the fertility rate and births reported when compraring the ACS data with the CDC data, 3.6M births in cdc and 4M in the acs for 2023 for example.

Why is the difference so big? It certainly cannot be justified solely based on the acs being for the mid point of the year and so for births for 2022M7 to 2023M6. Even adjusting for the possibility of some women who had a birth in the last 12M having had the baby outside the US the difference is still too big

  1. Will this discrepancy eventually be solved? Was hoping to get fertility data by language spoken but with differences of over 10% it gets difficult getting reliable data.

Thanks in advance

Parents
  • A couple of thoughts

    You need to give a specific reference for where you got your numbers.  Are you looking at data.census.gov ?  If so, what table ID and what geography?

      The ACS data is based on self report

    In the PAST 12 MONTHS, has this person given birth to any children?

    ACS data tables only report age as "Under 5 years" (tables) and "0" less than 1 year in PUMS so you wouldn't be able to figure out if a person was born in a particular based on a table or pums data.

    The children may not live with the mother and wouldn't be included in the ACS household count data.

    Based on a google search 3.1% of the us population are from a multiple birth.  Assuming that you are only looking at twins, this results in a 3.1% increase of the CDC numbers over the count of recent mothers in the ACS question.

    The CDC data is based on the

    https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db507.htm

    What count do you get when you analyze this file ?

    The CDC uses data from the natality data file from the National Vital Statistics System. The vital statistics natality file is based on information from birth certificates and includes information for all births occurring in the United States. This Data Brief accompanies the release of the 2023 natality public-use file (2)

    ftp.cdc.gov/.../Nat2023us.zip

    In any case, please provide a reference for your numbers.

    Thanks

    Dave

Reply
  • A couple of thoughts

    You need to give a specific reference for where you got your numbers.  Are you looking at data.census.gov ?  If so, what table ID and what geography?

      The ACS data is based on self report

    In the PAST 12 MONTHS, has this person given birth to any children?

    ACS data tables only report age as "Under 5 years" (tables) and "0" less than 1 year in PUMS so you wouldn't be able to figure out if a person was born in a particular based on a table or pums data.

    The children may not live with the mother and wouldn't be included in the ACS household count data.

    Based on a google search 3.1% of the us population are from a multiple birth.  Assuming that you are only looking at twins, this results in a 3.1% increase of the CDC numbers over the count of recent mothers in the ACS question.

    The CDC data is based on the

    https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db507.htm

    What count do you get when you analyze this file ?

    The CDC uses data from the natality data file from the National Vital Statistics System. The vital statistics natality file is based on information from birth certificates and includes information for all births occurring in the United States. This Data Brief accompanies the release of the 2023 natality public-use file (2)

    ftp.cdc.gov/.../Nat2023us.zip

    In any case, please provide a reference for your numbers.

    Thanks

    Dave

Children
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