Combining the Strengths of Dutch Survey and Register Data in a Data Challenge to Predict Fertility (PreFer)

The social sciences have produced an impressive body of research on determinants of fertility outcomes, or whether and when people have children. However, the strength of these determinants and underlying theories are rarely evaluated on their predictive ability on new data. This prevents us from systematically comparing studies, hindering the evaluation and accumulation of knowledge. In this paper, we present two datasets which can be used to study the predictability of fertility outcomes in the Netherlands. One dataset is based …

challenge children cs.db cs.lg data people predictive research social social sciences survey