Demographic and Health Surveys Methodology - Measure DHS

Statistics: Mean Number of Children Ever Born and Mean Number of Living ChildrenDefinitionArithmetic average of children, both surviving and dead, to whom women in the sample have evergiven birth.A. Coverage:1. All women.2. Currently married women—Include formal and married or living in a consensual unionwomen only.B. Numerators:1. Mean number of children ever born: Sum of number of children surviving and dead at thetime of the survey who were given birth by women in the sample.2. Mean number of living children: Sum of number of children alive at the time of the surveywho were given birth by women in the sample.C. Denominator: Number of women in sample. Same for both statistics.CalculationNumerator divided by denominator. In ever-married samples, the denominator is adjusted by the allwoman factor.Handling of Missing ValuesNot applicable—Number of children and marital status of women and children’s survival status are notallowed to have missing values.Notes and ConsiderationsExpressed to two decimal places.Guide to DHS Statistics 35 Updated September 2006