También hemos escrito un blog en español, que podéis leer aquí. Mil gracias al equipo de @nadaesgratis.bsky.social nadaesgratis.es/bagues/el-mi...
(3/9) Sex, Lies and Birth Statistics by Manuel Bagues, @carmenvillaecon.bsky.social
Evidence of inconsistencies in Spanish birth data sheds light on missing women in official statistics.
www.rfberlin.com/wp-content/u...
Our findings highlight the responsibility of statistical agencies to cross-validate and, where necessary, flag known data errors to prevent misinterpretation by researchers. The Spanish women were never missing, but are an artefact of processing errors at INE 5/n
The official birth registry data show very large sex ratios in Spain from 1975 until approximately 2000 (normal rates are 105-106). Evidence of the registry being wrong comes from comparing it to the census. The differences remain after account for mortality/migration 2/n
The registry also shows implausible variation in sex ratios at the province and month level. The outliers are not normally distributed but consistent with one-directional miscoding of females as males 3/n
According to official birth registry data, in 1981 Spain had the highest sex ratio in the world (109 boys per 100 girls). Prior work attributed this anomaly to demographic/behavioural patterns. In a new WP, we show the high ratio is due to data errors 🧵with Manuel Bagues 1/n