Estimating paternity in Australia, 1976-2010

Demographers have historically studied fertility with reference to female populations. As bearers and prime nurturers of children, women have been more reliable sources of data, and their lives are more strongly impacted by parenthood. Greater concern with men's role in fertility decision-making and child socialization has, however, lately focused more attention on measuring male fertility. This paper estimates age-specific and total paternity rates for Australia during 1976-2010. Australia has long published ages of fathers for marital births, but from 1976, with cohabitation proliferating, also began publishing them for non-marital births where paternity was acknowledged. The methodology developed here estimates annual paternal age distributions for non-marital births where paternity was not acknowledged, enabling age-specific and total paternity rates to be estimated and compared with female fertility rates.