The data set that I have chosen comes from the World Bank’s Gender Statistics. It includes data at the country level for a number of statistics that are related to female health. Some of these statistics include adolescent fertility rate, contraceptive prevalence for both any and modern methods, demand for family planning, wanted fertility rate, and more. I have also selected variables that relate to the context in which women are receiving health care such as poverty rates, law mandates paid or unpaid maternity leave, female literacy rates, and more. [1]

The variables I’ve chosen to focus on are female migrants (% of international migrant stock) as a potential independent variable, adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women ages 15-19) as the dependent variable, and female unemployment, legislation on domestic violence, and population below poverty line as control variables. [2]

Adolescent fertility rates, colloquially known as teenage pregnancy rates, are an indicator of reproductive health as they represent the ability (or lack thereof) of young women to utilize contraception, access reproductive/prenatal health care, etc.

The variables that fall under the nominal level of measurement are: laws mandate paid or unpaid maternity leave (yes/no dummy variable) and legislation on domestic violence exists (also a yes/no dummy variable). [3] There are no data that fall under the ordinal level of measurement. The rest of the data falls under the interval-ratio level of measurement. These include: female migrants (% of international migrant stock), adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women ages 15-19, female unemployment rates, percentage of population below the poverty line, wanted fertility rate, female literacy rates, and contraceptive prevalence–both any method and modern methods (% of female population aged 15-49 who are married or in union). [4]

The aforementioned data is at the country level and covers the 263 countries and regions The World Bank provides data for. [5] A limitation of this dataset in terms of my research is that it is impossible to differentiate between the experiences of immigrant and native women. Instead, I must rely on immigrant population data and health indicators–in this case, the adolescent fertility rate–to explore potential relationships.  

[1] “Gender Statistics, The World Bank.” Accessed Oct 10, 2018, http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=gender-statistics#.

[2] Ibid; CIA World Factbook. “Field Listing: Population Below Poverty Line.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2046.html#185 (accessed Oct 14, 2018).  

[3] The World Bank.

[4] Ibid; CIA World Factbook.

[5] The World Bank.