Peru, 1977-78 (WFS)

The following description of this survey appeared in the 1991 edition of Dynamic Database: A Catalogue of Survey Data Files, Voorburg: International Statistical Institute.

Basic Information

• Name of survey: Encuesta Nacional de Fecundidad del Perú
• Executive agency: Instituto Nacional de Estadística
• Date of fieldwork: 1977-78
• Universe: Ever-married women, 15-49
• Coverage: National, 100%
• Size: 5640
• Weights: Self-weighting within domains
• Contents: WFS Core Mark 1 + fertility regulation module
• Supplementary surveys: Household (n = 41,304, self-weighting within domains); Community (n = 366 rural clusters/urban primary sampling units); Re-interview (n = 1198)

Additional Information

The fieldwork was unusually long (July 1977 - June 1978) due to climatic and administrative problems. The Eastern Region (the jungle) was heavily oversampled to allow reporting for this numerically small population. This was the only Latin American WFS survey to use an ever-married sample. However, single women (and women aged 50 or more) enumerated in the household survey were asked about life-time fertility and date of last birth. Also included on the household schedule were items on maternal and paternal orphanhood.

Supplementary MCH information was collected in the individual survey on the last pregnancy/live birth: place of medical attention (if any) at pre-natal, delivery and post-natal stages; whether the child had been vaccinated, Lengths of full breastfeeding, post-partum abstinence and amenorrhoea were ascertained for the penultimate but not last birth. A limited amount of additional information about contraception was collected: source of supply of current/last method and duration of use; reasons for stopping in open and last closed birth interval. As part of a larger Response Errors project, a re-interview survey of 1198 women was conducted. (See reference 3 below.)

Community-level data were collected for the selected clusters in rural and for larger PSUs in urban areas. The presence of the following services/facilities were recorded: health facility, types of school, piped water supply, sewerage, electricity, transport, commercial and recreation centres, banks and security services. Predominant and secondary economic activities were also recorded.

Release Conditions

Data may be used for academic research, provided that credit is given in any publication resulting from the research to the agency that conducted the survey and that two copies of any publication are sent to:

Public Use Files

Available files include the individual standard recode data and dictionary, in the original WFS format. In addition, the individual standard recode data and dictionary dictionary are available in ISSA format. The table below lists the file names and descriptions.

Key References

1. Dirección General de Censos, Encuestas y Demografía, Encuesta Nacional de Fecundidad del Perú, 1977-78: Informe General, Lima, 1979.

2. Céspedes, Y., Evaluation of the Peru National Fertility Survey 1977-78, WFS Scientific Reports no 33, 1982.

3. O'Muircheartaigh, C.A., The Magnitude and Pattern of Response Variance in the Peru Fertility Survey, WFS Scientific Reports no 45, 1984.

4. Young, F.W., B. Edmonston and N. Andes, Community-Level Determinants of Infant and Child Mortality in Peru, Social Indicators Research 12(1), 1983.