Estimation of the Target Population of Family Planning Users by Using Series of Probabilistic Markov Matrices

  The study aims to estimate the target population of family planning users by using series of probabilistic Markov matrices throughout building a model depend on the dynamic of the target population and its probabilities functions. The proposed model used to estimate the target population for each method according to age distribution of contraceptive users. Besides, the study compared between estimators computed by different manners with estimators computed by the new proposed model and tried to find out to what extent it's closed to real observed target population, in order to evaluate this model. The study used data from Egypt Demographic and Health Surveys (1995-2000) and time series data of numbers of contraceptive users according to type of the adopted method and their age categories – National Population Council-MOPH during the time period (1995-2000). The target population of IUDS users was estimated. The results revealed that there is high position correlation between actual and estimated values (0.99) which indicated that the target population of IUDS users will Identified by the new proposed model. Therefore, it can be count on this model to perform future estimates.