Coping with time - Using a local time-path calendar to reduce heaping in durations

Reproductive health surveys often face difficulties in measuring age and durations. Heaping is the phenomenon that certain dates, ages or durations are over- or underrepresented. Following the calendar method used in several Demographic and Health Surveys, the current research proposes the use of a local time path calendar, based on time perceptions of women in South India. The objective of the calendar is to reduce heaping in the durations of postpartum amenorrhoea, breastfeeding, postpartum abstinence, and contraceptive use. The interviewer takes the respondent back in time using the local calendar; the memory of respondents is triggered by relating events to Indian festivals and other landmarks in the lives of people, enabling them to reply in their own time perspective. The method was tested in 2000 in a survey in South India; the findings indicate significantly less duration heaping.