A comparison of results obtained by men and women interviewers in a fertility survey

In a pilot survey about family size and the use of contraception for which the sample was the parents of legitimate babies the interviews with fathers were systematically divided between men and women interviewers. There was no difference in the response rate of the two groups and although there were some differences in the types of answers given to certain questions most of the differences might have occurred by chance. We could not see any clear pattern in the sorts of response that varied.

A hypothesis about the variation was put forward by some of our advisers and we collected some further information about this which did not support the hypothesis. On the basis of this study we do not feel it necessary to recruit and train men to interview the fathers on the main study but are using women interviewers for both mothers and fathers.