KIDBIRTHMO_ET_ALL (B1_x) variables are 2-digit variables.

1 = Meskerem
2 = Tikimt
3 = Hidar
4 = Tahsas
5 = Tir
6 = Yakatit
7 = Magabit
8 = Miyazya
9 = Ginbot
10 = Sene
11 = Hamle
12 = Nehasa
99 = NIU (not in universe)

Description

KIDBIRTHMO_ET_ALL (B1_x) reports the child's month of birth, according to the Ethiopian calendar. This variable is only available for the Ethiopian samples.

KIDBIRTHMO_ET_ALL consists of a set of twenty separate variables, covering the most recent birth (KIDBIRTHMO_01) up to the twentieth-most-recent birth (KIDBIRTHMO_20) for a female respondent of childbearing age. If KIDBIRTHMO_ET_ALL is included in a data extract, all these separate variables are included in a researcher's data file.

Information for this variable was collected on all births for a woman, up to a maximum of twenty births. In many cases, data were hypothetically collected on up to twenty births, but no women in the survey had so many births (e.g., no woman had 19 or 20 births). If, for example, no woman in a survey had 20 births and only blank values were included in the original DHS file, then KIDBIRTHMO_20 would not be available for that survey in IPUMS-DHS.

Comparability

KIDBIRTHMO_ET_ALL (B1_x) has no comparability problems across Ethiopian samples.

All standard date variables in Ethiopia DHS samples are given in the Ethiopian calendar. The Ethiopian year consists of 365 days, divided into 12 months of 30 days and one month of 5 days (6 days in a leap year). According to the Gregorian calendar, the Ethiopian year begins September 11 and ends the following September 10. The 13th month of the Ethiopian calendar falls in September. It is only possible to convert dates given in the Ethiopian calendar to the Gregorian calendar when the exact date (day, month and year) is available. Otherwise, it is only possible to approximate to the month. In general, the Ethiopian calendar is 92 months behind the Gregorian calendar.

KIDBIRTHMO_ET_ALL uses the Ethiopian calendar as a starting point, but some recoding has been done to make the Ethiopian data resemble the 12 month units of the Gregorian calendar. For example, the month of January (month 1) in the Gregorian calendar has 31 days, while the month of Meskerem (month 1) in the Ethiopian calendar has only 30 days. In the conversion process, the first day of Tikimt (month 2) is recoded as the 31st day of month 1. Month 2 in the conversion will have 28 or 29 days (as the Gregorian calendar's February has), depending on whether the year in question is a leap year according to the Gregorian calendar. By doing this conversion, The DHS Program distributes the 365 days of the Ethiopian year into just 12 months, allowing DHS to apply the same procedures used in surveys for other countries.

Comparability - Standard DHS

KIDBIRTHMO_ET_ALL (B1_x) is included in every phase of the standard DHS questionnaire for Ethiopian samples.

Universe