Summary of All Calendar Variables
| Variable | Description | Original DHS Program Variable |
|---|---|---|
| Technical Variables | ||
| CALCMC_MONTH | Century Month Code (CMC) for every month of the woman's calendar. The earliest CMC for all women in the sample is constant and is the century month code of January of the first year of the calendar. CMC_MONTH depends on the duration of the calendar for every woman, since women in the sample have reproductive calendars of different lengths (depending on their month of interview). Note that CALCMC_MONTH is listed for every woman in descending order, so it starts with the most recent month. | |
| CALSEQ | Sequential number for woman-months reported for every woman during the calendar period, with the earliest month coded 1. In some cases, you may wish to limit months of exposure to a consistent five-year period, including the onth of interview and the 59 months preceding the interview month (i.e., woman-months with the highest value for CALSEQ [the interview month] for a woman and the 59 preceding values). This limitation ensures that all women have the same amount of time "at risk" of an event, despite being interviewed in different months during the survey year. | |
| CALCASEID_CMC | Unique woman-month variable based on concatenating a woman's unique CASEID with the CMC code for every month of her calendar. The first element, CASEID, is usually created by the DHS Porgram from three variables: CLUSTERNO (V001), HHNUM (V002), and LINENO (V003), with the last three characters indicating the female respondent's line number in the household file. The second element reports the date of the woman-month in century months (CMC). | Concatenating CASEID with the CMC month code |
| Summary Variables on Reproductive Events | ||
| CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS | This variable contains a single reproductive event that happened to a woman in every month, as contained in the original variable vcal_1. CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS is based on breaking up the vcal_1 string and attributing an event to the corresponding CMC month. The CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS variable can contain only one code per month and is created by recoding alpha-numeric codes from vcal_1. The variable has the following codes: 100 - birth, 200 - pregnancy, 300 - pregnancy termination, and numbers 1-99 representing the use of specific contraceptive methods. (Absence of any of these events is represented by a 0.) Codes for contraceptive methods are based on standard codes from DHS Recode Phase VII, plus some additional numeric codes based on country-specific responses not recognized in the standard codes. For the full list of codes for CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS, see the Codes and Frequencies section of the variable description. CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS includes only those samples that collected information about contraceptive use, as well as about births, pregnancies, and terminations. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALREPROD_PBT | This variable reports whether a birth, pregnancy, or pregnancy termination occurred during the woman-month. CALREPROD_PBT includes samples that collected calendar data about births, pregnancies, and terminations only, as well as samples included in CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS. CALREPROD_PBT includes the same information as in CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS except that all months reporting contraceptive use in CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS are coded 0 in CALREPROD_PBT. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALEVENTWFP | Binary variable indicating whether any of the following events occurred during month: pregnancy, birth, termination, or contraceptive use (1-yes, 0-no). | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALEVENTPBT | Binary variable indicating whether any of the following events occurred during month: pregnancy, birth, termination (1-yes, 0-no). | Created from vcal_1 |
| Variables on Contraceptive Use | ||
| CALCONTR | Binary variable indicating whether a woman used any contraceptive method during that CMC month (1-yes, 0-no). | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALCONTR_TOTAL | Total numbers of months a woman used any contraceptive method during the length of her reproductive calendar. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALCONTR_START | Binary variable indicating whether a woman began, during that woman-month, to use a method of contraception that she was not using during the previous month (1-yes, 0-no). CALCONTR_START will have an affirmative response if a) the woman was not using any contraception during the preceding month or b) if she used a different method of contraception than during the preceding month. CALCONTR_START excludes from the variable universe months when a woman was pregnant, gave birth, or experienced pregnancy termination during the current or preceding month. The reason for this exclusion is that the calendar format allows reporting only one reproductive event per month, and any month with a birth, pregnancy, or termination cannot also report contraceptive use. Additionally, the universe for CALCONTR_START excludes the first month of each woman's calendar, since her status in the previous month is unknown. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALCONTR_CHANGE | Binary variable indciating whether a woman began, during that woman-month, to use a different method of contraception than she used during the preceding month (1-yes, 0-no). CALCONTR_CHANGE Is thus a special (narrower) case of CALCONTR_START, with an affirmative response only when a different contraceptive method was used during the preceding month. | Created from vcal_1 |
| Variables on Pregnancy | ||
| CALPREG | Binary variable indcating whether a woman was pregnant during that CMC month (1-yes, 0-no). Note that a woman was also pregnant during the month that she gave birth, so eight months of pregnancy followed by a live birth represent a 9-month pregnancy. However, the month in which the woman gave birth will be coded 0 in CALPREG, since the birth rather than the pregnancy is recorded on the calendar form for the birth month. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALPREG_TOTAL | Total number of months a woman was pregnant during the entire length of her reproductive health calendar. Note that CALPREG_TOTAL does not include months when the woman gave birth or terminated a pregnancy. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALPREG_RC | Binary variable indicating whether the months of a reported pregnancy were right-censored, or truncated, by the end of the calendar period (1-yes, 0-no). If a pregnancy was right-censored, then all months of that pregnancy are coded as 1 in CALPREG_RC. Right-censored pregnancies are excluded from summary variables about the duration of a pregnancy. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALPREG_LC | Binary variable indicating whether the months of a reported pregnancy were left-censored, or truncated, by the start of the calendar period (1-yes, 0-no). If a pregnancy was left-censored, then all months of that pregnancy, including the month of birth or pregnancy termination, was coded as 1 in CALPREG_LC. Left-censored pregnancies are excluded from summary variables about the duration of a pregnancy. If a woman was pregnant during the earliest month of her calendar, it is possible that the pregnancy started before the beginning of the calendar period, and CALPREG_LC is coded 1. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALPREG_LENGTH | Cumulative duration of a non-truncated pregnancy in months. The final month of a woman's pregnancy - whether it resulted in a live birth or termination - is counted toward the cumulative duration. For example, a woman who was pregnant for 8 months and gave birth in month 9 will have a cumulative duration of pregnancy equal to 9 months. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALPREG_LONG | Binary variable indicating whether the cumulative duration of a non-truncated pregnancy, including the birth or termination month, was greater than 9 months (1-yes, 0-no). | Created from vcal_1 |
| Variables on Births | ||
| CALBIRTH | Binary variable indicating whether a woman delivered a live birth during that CMC month (1-yes, 0-no). | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALBIRTH_TOTAL | Total number of live births a woman had during the entire length of her reproductive health calendar. | Created from vcal_1 |
| Variables on Pregnancy Termination | ||
| CALTERM | Binary variable indicating whether a woman terminated a pregnancy/delivered a non-live birth during that CMC month (1-yes, 0-no). | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALTERM_TOTAL | Total number of terminations (abortions, miscarriages, and stillbirths) a woman had during the entire length of her reproductive health calendar. | Created from vcal_1 |
| CALABORT | A binary variable denoting whether a woman had an abortion in that month (1-yes, 0-no). | Information stored in variables other than vcal_1 or vcal_2 in original string data. |
| CALMISCAR | A binary variable denoting whether a woman had a miscarriage in that month (1-yes, 0-no). | Information stored in variables other than vcal_1 or vcal_2 in original string data. |
| CALSBIRTH | A binary variable indcating whether a woman had a stillbirth in that month (1-yes, 0-no). | Information stored in variables other than vcal_1 or vcal_2 in original string data. |
| CALABORT_TOTAL | The total number of abortions a woman had during her calendar period. | Information stored in variables other than vcal_1 or vcal_2 in original string data. |
| CALMISCAR_TOTAL | The total number of miscarriages a woman had during her calendar period. | Information stored in variables other than vcal_1 or vcal_2 in original string data. |
| CALSBIRTH_TOTAL | The total number of stillbirths a woman had during her calendar period. | Information stored in variables other than vcal_1 or vcal_2 in original string data. |
| Reasons for and Occurrence of Contraceptive Discontinuation | ||
| CALREASON | This variable reports why a woman stopped using a contraceptive method. The rationale for stopping was recorded for the final month (last CMC month) of a spell of continuous use of that method. Many of the DHS standard codes for this variable are alphabetic (e.g., "F" for "fatalistic"). IPUMSDHS has given all reasons numeric codes to simplify manipulation. Because the recognized reasons vary across samples, IPUMS DHS also uses composite coding for CALREASON. The first digit of a two-digit code is shared by similar responses (e.g., a "1" for "Side effects"), while the second digit provides additional detail (e.g., code "11" for "Gained weight"). For the full list of codes for CALREASON, see the Codes and Frequencies tab of the variable description for CALREASON. | Created from vcal_2 |
| CALCONTR_STOP | Binary variable indicating whether the woman-month was the last of a continuous period when a woman used a particular contraceptive method (1-yes, 0-no). If affirmative, the woman did not use the same method in the following month. CALCONTR_STOP is available for the same CMC month used to report CALREASON and is affirmative if CALREASON has a value less than 99 (not in universe). However, some samples reporting contraceptive use in CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS did not collect information on the reason for stopping contraceptive use. For these samples, CALCONTR_STOP is based on comparing contraceptive use in adjoining months, based on the data in CALREPROD_ALLEVENTS. | Created from vcal_2 |
| CALCONTRA_STOP_TOTAL | Total number of times a woman stopped using any contraceptive method(s) during the entire length of her reproductive health calendar. | Created from vcal_2 |
| Other Calendar Variables | ||
| CALMARRIED | Indicates whether a woman was married/inuion during the month. Code 0 indicates a woman was not in union during that month; codes 1 and 2 identify consummated and unconsummated unions, respectively. This variable is only rarely available. | Created from vcal_3 through vcal_9 |
| CALRESIDENCE | Indicates 1) whether a woman moved to a new community during the month and 2) if she did not move that month, the type of community (city, town, rural area) where she lived. Researchers should use CALRESIDENCE with caution, given the codes in the data often did not match the codes in the documentation about this variable in country-specific final reports. This variable is only rarely available. | Created from vcal_3 through vcal_9 |
| CALWORK | Reports whether the woman was employed during the month (code 0 = no) and if so, whether she was a paid, self-employed, or unpaid worker and whether she worked at home or away from home. This variable is only rarely available. | Created from vcal_3 through vcal_9 |
Note: Changing Codes in Calendar Data
Keep in mind that codes for contraceptive methods in the Final Reports differ from the codes in vcal_1, in the DHS IR files, because the codes for vcal_1 have been standardized by the DHS Program. These differences between contraceptive codes in final reports and the standard contraceptive codes in vcal_1 are illustrated by two examples in the figure below. The standard contraceptive codes in vcal_1 undergo further changesi n the woman-month data from IPUMS DHS, which changes letter codes into numeric codes to simplify analysis. IPUMS DHS further changes the original numeric codes associated with some contraceptive methods, to group together similar methods via composite coding and increase comparability across samples.
Similar changes in codes are found for data on reasons for discontinuing contraceptive use (in CALREASON), as one moves from the codes in sample-specific survey forms and final reports, to codes imposed by The DHS Program for the string calendar data in IR files, and then to IPUMS DHS's recoding of alphabetic codes into numeric codes grouped to maximized comparability across samples. Several otehr variables use alphabetic codes in the original string data to report events such as births, pregnancies, pregnancy terminations (overall and by type), breastfeeding, and post-partum abstinence, and IPUMS DHS consistently converts alphabetic responses into numeric codes.
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