AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

© 2017, Science Huβ, http://www.scihub.org/AJSIR

ISSN: 2153-649X, doi:10.5251/ajsir.2017.8.3.34.46

Stochastic models of Nigerian total livebirths

Adekanmbi, D.B
Department of Statistics,
Ladoke Akintola University of Technology,
Ogbomoso, Oyo-State, Nigeria.

ABSTRACT

This study aims at modelling Nigerian total livebirths data, and to select the appropriate model for
the disaggregated livebirths series among the proposed univariate stochastic time series models,
based on in-sample fitting. Forecast of demographic variables such as births has a great
influence on the growth of a population with respect to its demands on various systems such as
education, health, economy, and provision of social amenities for future population over a period
of time. The result of the Dickey-Fuller test confirmed the stationarity of the livebirths series, after
subjecting it to non-seasonal differencing and Box-Cox variance stabilizing transformation.
Correlogram visual analysis method was employed to identify reasonable models for the total
livebirths series; and the identified univariate models are ARIMA(1,1,0), and
SARIMA(1,1,0)(0,0,1)4. The diagnostic checks to evaluate the adequacy of the fits of the models
revealed that the residuals of the two univariate models were indeed serially uncorrelated. The
results of other measures of adequacy verification and forecast accuracy suggest that the two
univariate models provided adequate predictive models for the Nigerian total livebirths series,
with the SARIMA model outperforming the ARIMA model. Thus the SARIMA model was chosen
as the more appropriate model in fitting the livebirths data because of its overall fit as confirmed
by its measures of forecast performance.

Keywords: Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model, Seasonal Autoregressive

Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA), Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test, Autocorrelation
function (acf), Partial autocorrelation function (pacf), Box-Cox variance stabilizing transformation.

INTRODUCTION Fertility rate refers to the relative frequency with

Fertility is a vital component of demographic change
and for predicting the size and structure of a
population. Four demographic terms namely fertility,
livebirths, natality and reproduction have overlapping
meanings, relating to total births, including live-births
and still-births. Fertility which is the actual birth
performance in a population is also defined as the
frequency of child bearing among a population.
Natality in a broader sense is the role of births in a
population change and human reproduction, [36].
The demographic definition of a livebirth as
recommended by the United Nations and the World
Health Organisation, defined livebirth as the complete
expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of
conception, irrespective of duration of pregnancy,
which after such separation, breathes or shows any
other evidence of life, such as beating of the heart,
pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement
of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical
cord has been cut or the placenta is attached; each
product of such a birth is considered livebirth, [29].
which births occur in a given population, while birth
rates refer to the rate of incidence of births within the
total population. Reproduction refers to the ability of a
population to grow and replace itself; and this
encompasses the processes of birth and death and
also examines the extent to which fertility balances
the force of mortality and permits population growth
as well.
Nigeria has a population close to 124 million in 2003;
and is one of the 10 most populous countries in the
world, and the most populous country in Africa. The
crude birth rate which is the number of births per
thousand of a population for Nigeria stood at 36.1 in
2010, [31]. The estimated total fertility rate per
woman in Nigeria has also decline from 7.2 in 1960
to 4.0 in 2013, [31]. This is an indication that though
the number of livebirths is on the increase in Nigeria,
nevertheless there is a sharp reduction in the number
of children a woman between ages 15-49 would have
during her reproductive life, if for all of her
childbearing years she were to experience the age-

specific birth rates for that given year. Between 1980
and 2003, it has been observed that the birthrate
among Nigerian women aged 15-19 has declined by
27%. However, because Nigeria population
increased rapidly, the annual number of births to
teenage women increased by 50% over this period,
[32]. Adolescent birthrate therefore contributes
significantly to the total birth rate of women in Nigeria.
In the recent, age-at-marriage of females has
increased which consequently lead to a decrease in
fertility rate in Nigeria. A decrease of total fertility rate
may be due to postponement of births among the
females of reproductive age in the country. The
estimated crude birth rate of Nigeria which stood at
46.2 in 1970 has reduced to 41.5 as at 2012, [30].
The main sources of data on livebirths are vital
statistics registration system, national censuses, and
national sample surveys. Most developing nations in
Africa now have vital registration system which
provides birth statistics among other relevant vital
statistics that can be collected through the
registration system. In Nigeria, the National
Population Commission is an agency with statutory
mandate to establish and maintain a uniform system
of vital registration for the nation with a view of
providing vital statistics on a regular basis for the
purpose of socio-economic planning, [24]. The
National Population Commission reported a total of 9,
936,221 registered livebirths in Nigeria during the
period 1994-2007.
Modelling of demographic phenomenon can
contribute to understanding such demographic
variable by revealing something about the process
that builds persistence into the series. Time series
modelling is a critical step in direct projection of
demographic phenomenon such as total livebirths.
Time series models are useful statistical instrument
for short term forecasts of births, to indicate the
number of children to be born if movements observed
in the recent past continue in the near future, [21].
Univariate time series models use only past values of
the variable under consideration to forecast future
values. Two univariate stochastic time series models
to be considered in this study are: Autoregressive
Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Seasonal
Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average
(SARIMA). ARIMA model, a forecasting instrument in
time series is adequate in calculating projections for a
particular variable based on observations of that
same variable in the past, [5]. Several researchers in
the past have proposed Autoregressive Integrated
Moving Average (ARIMA) models in predicting future
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Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46
demographic variables of different populations, [4,
21, 22, 25]. Seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA) model is a
generalization of a non-seasonal ARIMA model, [18].
SARIMA model is capable of describing a wide range
of series containing random changes in level and
slope of their seasonal pattern. In seasonal data
there are two time intervals of importance, [23]. A
SARIMA model may be thought of as describing two
effects simultaneously. When dealing with a quarterly
series, the quarter-to-quarter behavior is assumed to
be described by a non-seasonal ARIMA model with
parameters (p, d, q), while the residuals from this
model are assumed to be represented by a year-to-
year ARIMA model with parameters (P, D, Q).
The focus of this study is to propose univariate
stochastic time series models namely: ARIMA model
and SARIMA model for projecting total livebirths of
Nigeria and to conduct empirical evaluation of the
forecasting power of the models based on measures
of forecast performance. This article has been
organised into eight sections. Description of the data
employed and its disaggregation are discussed in
section 2. Section 3 focuses on the theory of
univariate time series models, which are ARIMA and
SARIMA models. Overview of the theories of
diagnostic tests, measures of adequacy of time
series models and model selection are presented in
sections 4, 5 and 6 respectively. Results of the
analyses and an extensive discussion on the models
are presented in section 7. Conclusions and
recommendations based on the study are given in
section 8.
Data: Data on livebirths were extracted from the
reports on vital statistics registration of livebirths of
the publication of the National Population
Commission in Nigeria, [24]. The statistical report on
livebirths by the Commission on birth registration
coverage stood at 35% as at 2007. The data were
recorded on annual basis from 1994 to 2007. Time
series models are adequate for short term forecasting
with fifty or more observations of data point in order
to obtain good estimates of the parameters of a time
series model, [5, 6, 8, 13, 25]. It is therefore
necessary to disaggregate the annual observations
on livebirths to quarterly figures so as to have series
with high caseload that will not be affected by random
fluctuations; and to uncover the possible pattern of
total livebirths in Nigeria. Boot-Feibes-Lisman first
difference (BFL-FD) [3], which is a non-model based
method but suitable in disaggregating annual series
into quarterly figures, was employed to disaggregate

the annual data on registered livebirths into quarterly
figures.
Univariate Time Series Models: Univariate
stochastic time series models attempts to forecast a
time series yt from its past history only. Forecast from
a univariate time series can be written as:
Forecast  π1y t  π 2 y t 1  π3y t 2  π 4 y t4  ............
(1)
A univariate model must be developed so that the
weights  i s can be expressed in terms of few
parameters, in order to achieve parsimony. A
parsimonious model is the one which represents the
data adequately with the minimum number of
parameters. ARIMA and SARIMA models are
referred to as univariate because only one variable
depending on its past values is included. The models
are useful for out-of-sample forecasting and for
descriptive analyses. The two univariate time series
models that will be considered in this study are: (i)
ARIMA (ii) SARIMA. The univariate models use the
total livebirths as variable for the reference period.
The main objective of a time series model is
forecasting. Forecasting is to estimate the future
value of a series as accurately as possible from the
current and past values of the observed time series,
[5,7].
Arima Modelling: Autoregressive Integrated Moving
Average (ARIMA) models which is the most general
model of univariate time series models was first
introduced by Box and Jenkins, [5]. ARIMA models
may possibly include autoregressive terms, moving
average terms, and differencing operation. ARIMA
models are capable of describing a wide class of
stationary and non-stationary time series containing
stochastic trends; and have become popular time
series models for forecasting demographic variables,
[21, 22, 25]. They are capable of describing series
whose slope, level and higher derivatives are being
continuously modified by random shocks entering the
system, [6]. ARIMA model could be used to forecast
a value in a response series as a linear combination
of its own past values and past errors. The models
could be adopted for short term forecasts of livebirths
of a population to determine the future livebirths of
such a population. y t can be projected based on the
observed number of livebirths,
φBd y t  θBε t (2)
where
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Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46
B : Backward shift operator such that B y t  y t  j
j
φB : the autoregressive (AR) operator, such that:
φB  1  φ1B  .... φ p B .
p
θB : the moving average (MA) operator, such that:
θB  1  θ1B  .... θ q B .
q
ε t : a white noise sequence also referred to as
disturbance term such that
 
  2 2

E ε t  0 ; E ε t  σ ε and E ε t  t k  0 . 
y t : livebirths at time t.
d: order of non-seasonal differencing, and is a non-
negative integer.
Equation (1) is referred to as an autoregressive
integrated moving average (ARIMA) process. Simply
written as ARIMA(p, d, q) model.
where
p: order of non-seasonal autoregressive (AR) term.
d: order of non-seasonal differencing.
q: order of non-seasonal moving average (MA) term.
If d  1 , (1) now becomes
y t  φy t1  .........  φpy t p  ε t  θε t 1  ......  θε t q
(3)
The series yt will be stationary when the zeros of
 p B are all outside the unit circle, and will be
invertible when the zeros of θ p B are all outside
the unit circle, [1, 15, 16, 28]. Stationarity of the
series must first be checked by subjecting the series
to Augumented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) unit root test,
[12]. Unit root makes a series non-stationary. If the
result of the ADF test shows that the original series is
non-stationary, the degree of the difference d should
be chosen to transform the series into a stationary
series. Differencing d times removes polynomial
trend of degree d, and also removes stochastic ‘unit
root’ non-stationarity. In order to determine the order
of integration, d, of a series one could proceed by
testing the differenced series until the unit root
hypothesis is rejected. A difference stationary series

is said to be integrated, denoted as I(d), where d is
the order of integration. The order of integration is the
number of unit roots contained in a series, and
determines the number of differencing operations
required to make the series stationary. For a series
with one unit root, it is regarded as I(1), and a
stationary series is I(0), [14]. A stationary series have
constant mean, variance and autocorrelations, so
that the autocovariances of observations with a fixed
interval are constant through time.
When a series is characterized by heteroscedasticity,
it cannot be seen as the realization of an ARIMA
process even after differencing, because of
nonstationarity in variance, which can be removed by
applying Box-Cox transformation, [7, 8, 11, 13]. The
Box-Cox transformation is a variance stabilizing
measure which deal with nonstationarity in variance.
λ which adequately describes the series. The goal of
yt  1
z t λ   if λ  0
λ
 t
z t λ   log y if λ  0
(4)
The Box-Cox transformation allows reaching a good
level of symmetry of a series, independence of
random effects and stable variance. Apart from the
case of λ  0 , which corresponds to the logarithmic
transformation, other particular values are λ  0.5 ,
(square root) and λ  1 (cubic root). λ can be
3 regular pattern of changes that repeats over s time
determined through maximum likelihood estimates or
by common visual analysis. A good value of λ to
treat heteroscedasticity also makes the process
similar to a Gaussian and reduces the effects of
possible outliers. Mean non-stationarity can therefore
be removed by differencing the series to induce
stationarity, while variance non-stationarity can be
removed by subjecting the series to Box-Cox
variance stabilizing transformation. Unless the trend
is removed, no other components can be recognized
from acf and pacf.
After achieving stationarity in a series, the first step in
ARIMA modelling is to identify an adequate model,
which involves specifying the appropriate structure
and order of a model. Identification could be done by
visual inspection of the time series plot of the data,
acf and pacf; judging the appropriate model structure
and order from the appearance of the plotted acf and
pacf. Many popular statistical computing softwares
now have facility for identifying possible models for a
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Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46
series, [19]. The second step is to estimate the
parameters of the model. Parameters φ, θ  can be
estimated by least squares regression, and
sometimes could require more complicated iteration
procedure, [9].
The next step is diagnostic checking of the proposed
model which involves verification of the model to
ensure that the residuals of the model are random,
and to ensure that the estimated parameters are
statistically significant. If the ARIMA model is
correctly specified, the residuals from the model
should be nearly white noise. This implies that there
should be no serial correlation left in the residuals. If
the proposed model fails the diagnostic checks, one
starts over with identification. Estimation process is
usually guided by the principle of parsimony, by
which the best model is the simplest possible model
ARIMA analysis is a parsimonious representation of
the process governing residuals. Models that survive
diagnostic checks could be used to forecast, using
measures of accuracy to assess the performance of
such model.
Seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA) Modelling: Many
demographic variables are seasonal, and this
variation would be present even if the factors are not
casually related. When a series possess a seasonal
component that repeats every s observations,
SARIMA models could be formulated to deal with
seasonality in such data. Seasonality in a series is a
periods, where s is the number of time periods until
the pattern repeats again. The fundamental fact
about seasonal series with period s therefore is that
observations which are s intervals apart are similar.
Seasonality usually causes a series to be non-
stationary because the average values at some
particular times within the seasonal span may be
different from the average values at other times, [7].
Seasonal differencing removes seasonal trend, and
can also get rid of a seasonal random walk type of
nonstationarity. A series with both trend and
seasonality could be subjected to a non-seasonal
difference and a seasonal difference to induce
stationarity. The seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA) model
incorporates both non-seasonal and seasonal factors
in a multiplicative fashion. A multiplicative model is
one in which for example, for quarterly series, the
quarter-to-quarter behavior can be separated from
the year-to-year behavior, [18]. This implies that the
autoregressive operator, which dictates the weight to
be applied to the past history of the series, can be

factorised into a product of a non-seasonal
autoregressive operator and a number of seasonal
autoregressive operators, one for each seasonal
periods. Similarly, the moving average operator may
be written as the product of non-seasonal and
seasonal moving average operator. SARIMA models
are ARIMA(p,d,q) models whose residuals ε are
ARIMA(P,D,Q), so
y ~ SARIMAp, d, q x P, D, Qs . The general form of
t verification of the adequacy of the model. Plots of acf
the multiplicative SARIMA model which can be
written as SARIMA(p, d, q)(P, D, Q)s model as
suggested by reference [5] is:
 
φ p BΦ P Bs dsD y t  θq BΘQ Bs ε
t
 
(5)
where
p: order of non-seasonal autoregressive (AR) term.
q: order of non-seasonal moving average (MA) term.
d: order of non-seasonal differencing.
P: order of seasonal autoregressive (AR) term.
Q: order of seasonal moving average (MA) term.
D: order of seasonal differencing.
s: seasonal length or seasonal order.
B: Backward shift operator, such that Byt  y t 1
and B t   t 1 .
 : Differencing operator, such that y t  yt  y
d d1
and  y t    yt  w  t
 the estimation stage. Diagnostics measures should
  1  1  B
φ
p
B : AR polynomials of B of order p.
φ
p
B  1  φ1B  φ2B2  ...  φp Bp

q
B : MA polynomials of B of order q.

q
B  1  1B   2B2  ...   q Bq
 
s s
 p B : seasonal AR polynomial of B of order P.
 p B   1  1B   2 B  ......  P B
s s 2s Ps
Q B  : seasonal MA polynomial of B of order Q.
s s
Q B   1  1B  2 B  ...... P B
s s 2s Qs
ε t : is a sequence of identically and independently
distributed random variables, which are normally
Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46
distributed with mean zero and variance σε2 . It is also
referred to as a white noise process. The assumption
of normality of the model white noise process is
usually made in order to construct forecast intervals
for point forecasts.
SARIMA modeling process is also carried out in three
t stages which are: Model identification, model
that estimation and order selection; and diagnostic checks
and residual analysis which is also referred to as
and pacf could be used to discover s and also the
degree of differencing that is necessary to achieve
stationarity. Spikes in the acf at low lags could
t indicate
 1,2,......non-seasonal
T MA terms, while spikes in the
pacf indicate possible non-seasonal AR terms.
Repetition of patterns across the lags of the
correlograms that are multiples of s could indicate
seasonality in the series, [11]. A pure seasonal MA
should have a significant value for the acf at the lag
of the period and roughly zero otherwise. A pure
seasonal AR should taper off exponentially at
multiples of the lag of the period and be roughly zero.
The pacf of a pure seasonal MA should taper off
exponentially at multiples of the period and be zero
otherwise. The pacf of a pure seasonal AR should cut
off after the lag of one period, and should be zero for
all other values [5, 9, 11]. Having identified the
appropriate SARIMA model for a series, the
parameters of the selected model are estimated at
t 1
also be employed to evaluate the appropriateness of
the fits. If the model is found inadequate, the three
stages are repeated until satisfactory SARIMA model
is selected for the series under consideration.
Diagnostic Tests For Time Series Models: A
crucial aspect of the model building process is
diagnosis of the univariate models, which involves
analysing the model residuals to verify that the
residuals are random, [9]. Different diagnostic tests
can be performed to ascertain the adequacy of the
model. A large residual is an indication that the model
is not adequate, while the model is a good fit for a
series if the residuals should be random. The
residuals should be without pattern, so that there
should be no serial correlation in the residuals. One
of such tests is to verify if the residuals of a proposed
univariate model is a white noise process. The
significance of the autocorrelation of the residuals
could be checked if they are within the insignificance
bound, which is the two standard error bounds
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2 N , [20]. The desirable result is that the Square Error (FMSE), Forecast Mean Absolute Error
(FMAE) or Forecast Mean Absolute Percentage Error
correlation is 0 between residuals separated by any
(FMAPE), [20]. The measures are used in measuring
given time span, so that residuals should be
the accuracy of the projection of the models. Given a
unrelated to each other. The adequacy of the model
particular model for a process,
should be questioned if the autocorrelations of the
residuals of the first N/4 lags are close to the critical yt  μt  εt
bounds. (8)
Another approach to evaluating the randomness of
univariate time series models residuals is to examine The error after y t is observed is e t  y t  μ t .
the acf ‘as a whole’ rather than at the individual rk ' s
where
separately, [9]. The test is called the portmanteau
lack-of-fit test or Ljung-Box statistic. It is also simply μ t : is a known function of past y t and ε t values .
referred to as Q-statistic. Q-statistic for high-order
serial correlation is another diagnostic test for e t : is a realisation of random variable ε t and are
univariate time series models, which is a function of
the accumulated sample autocorrelations up to any independent and identically distributed
specified time lag. Q-statistic test is therefore a more with mean 0 and variance σ2 .

 2  Ee2t 
general test for serial correlation in the residuals. The
most direct evidence of random residuals is the FMSE  E y t  μ (9)
absence of significance values of the Q-statistic at
lags of about one quarter of the sample size. The The Forecast Mean Absolute Error (FMAE) could be
ideal acf of residuals is that all autocorrelations are computed using the formula

   
zero. A significant Q for residuals indicates a possible
problem with the model. If the autocorrelations of the FMAE  E y t  μ t  E ε t (10)
residuals at a particular lag exceeds the confidence
level, but the Q-statistic at that lag is non- The Forecast Mean Absolute Percentage Error
significance, then the autocorrelation could be (FMAPE):
regarded as a chance occurrence. Q-statistic is
approximately a χ 2n p distribution, where p is the 
 y  μt 

FMAPE  E  t  (11)
number of parameters in the model. The Q statistic

 yt  
is:
m Given that yt takes only positive values.
Q  n n  2 n  K  ρ ~a K 
1 2
(6)
Model Selection: The objective penalty function
k 1
criteria such as Akaike Information criteria (AIC),
where Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC) or Schwarz-
Bayesian Information Criteria (SBC) can be used to
ρ ~a : are the autocorrelations of estimation residuals. choose the most appropriate model among the
proposed models for a series. These criteria try to
K: a prefixed number of lags. find a trade-off between the goodness-of-fit and the
n: sample size. parsimony of the models considered. Akaike, [2]
proposed an information criterion of the form
Accuracy of Forecast Models: In most forecasting
situations, accuracy is treated as the overriding AIC  2InL  2k (12)
criterion for selecting a forecasting model. The word
where
‘accuracy’ refers to goodness of fit, which in turn
refers to how well the forecasting model is able to K: number of parameters in the model to be
reproduce the observed series. Empirical evaluations estimated.
of the performance of forecasting models rely upon L: Likelihood function of the model.
measures of error criterion such as Forecast Mean

39

When there are two or more competing models, the
model with the smallest AIC is deemed best in the
sense of minimizing the forecast mean square error,
[20]. It was however pointed out by Schwartz [27] that
AIC is not a consistent criterion due to the fact that it
does not select the true model with probability
approaching 1 as n   , [10, 17]. Schwartz [2]
therefore proposed the Bayesian Information criterion
(BIC)
BIC  2InL  kIn(n) (13)
where
n: number of observed data points or sample size.
The BIC include fewer terms than the AIC since the
penalty term is greater. If the process follows an
ARIMA(p,d,q) model, then it is known that the orders
specified by minimizing the BIC are consistent, that is
they approach the true orders as the sample size
increases. However if the true process is not a finite
order ARIMA process, then minimizing AIC among an
increasingly large class of ARIMA models will lead to
an optimal ARIMA model that is closest to the true
process among the class of models under study.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF THE ANALYSES:
The time plot for the quarterly disaggregated
livebirths series is shown in Figure 1. Examination of
Fig. 1: Time plot of the disaggregated livebirths series (yt).
Figure 2 shows the acf and the pacf of the
disaggregated livebirths series, yt, while figure 3 is the
 
acf and pacf of the differenced series y t with log
transformation. The acf of the livebirths data shown in
Figure 2(a) has a sinusoidal pattern that tails off to
zero reflecting the meandering shape of the series,
which indicates that the series is non-stationary;
40
Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46
the time plot revealed that there is no consistent
trend in the series over the time period considered.
The livebirths series did not show any marked
seasonality pattern, and the curved trend shows that
the series is not stationary in variance. A downward
trend in the number of registered livebirths was
noticed in 1998, which was then followed by an
upward trend till 2003, after which there was a slight
downward trend. A sudden upward peak was obvious
in 2006, reaching its maximum in 2007, followed by a
downward trend. A sharp peak is an indication that
highest number of livebirths was recorded in this
period. The disaggregated series was subjected to
the Augumented Dickey-Fuller test to ascertain its
stationarity status. The ADF value of -3.0655 with p-
value of 0.1723 at 5% level of significance, showing
that there is presence of unit root and the original
disaggregated series is therefore not stationary. The
autocorrelations of the series exhibits non-stationarity
in mean and the variability of the data does not look
constant, as shown in Figure 2(a). After subjecting
the series to non-seasonal differencing and Box-Cox
variance stabilizing transformation, the value of the
ADF test yielded a value of -5.020 with a p-value
0.0105 at 5% level of significance, an evidence that
stationarity has been achieved.
suggesting that at least one non-seasonal
differencing will be appropriate. The livebirths series
is expected
characteristics,
to
since
possess
the
non-stationarity
series represent
‘uncontrolled’ behavior of certain process outputs.
Spikes in the pacf could indicate possible non-
seasonal AR terms. The pacf of the series shows a
 Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46

clear single positive spike at lag 1 and a negative

spike at lag 2. After subjecting the series to variance
stabilizing transformation so that z t  log  y t and
 
non-seasonal differencing z t to remove trend
nonstationarity; the series becomes a stationary
process, as shown in figure 3(a). The acf cuts off
after lag 2, and the rest of the values randomly
oscillate about zero, within the insignificance limits.
The non-significance spikes show some patterns of
groups of positive and negative values. The
autocorrelations at lag 1 and 2 are positive, an
indication that the AR is positive. The tapering pattern
in the lags of the acf suggests that a non-seasonal
AR(1) may be a useful part the model. The large
spike in the acf at lag 1 might lead to a seasonal
MA(1) interpretation. The identified univariate models
are therefore ARIMA(1,1,0) and
SARIMA(1,1,0)(0,0,1)4.

Fig. 3: acf and pacf of z  t .

The equation of the fitted ARIMA model is therefore:

1  φBz t  ε t
(14)
ARIMA(1,1,0) can be written explicitly as

z t  z t 1  φz t 1  φz t 2  ε t
(15)

z t  z t 1  φz t 1  z t 2   ε t
(16)
The equation of the SARIMA(1,1,0)(0,0,1)4 model is

1  φBz t  1  ΘB4 ε t
The SARIMA model can also be written explicitly as
Fig. 2: acf and pacf of livebirths series (yt)
z t  z t 1  φz t 1  z t 2   ε t  Θεt 4
(17)
The disaggregated livebirths data are quarterly
series, so that the period length is 4.

41
 Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46

Table 1. Model estimation for the livebirths models

Model Estimated Model MLEa SEb t- p- Stationary R2
value value R2 value value

ARIMA1,1,0 1  0.508Bz t  ε t φ 0.126 4.028 0.000 0.247 0.824

=0.508

SARIMA1,1,00,0,14
φ
1  0.519Bz t  1  0.421B4 ε t
0.124 4.187 0.000 0.302 0.902
=0.519
 
 0.138 3.056 0.004
=0.421
a
The maximum likelihood estimates.
b
Standard error.

Table 2. Performance Comparison of the Univariate Models

Model AIC BIC FMSE FMAE FMAPE Residual Variance

ARIMA1,1,0 -15.02 21.529 45521.864 23212.44 12.178 0.03999

SARIMA1,1,00,0,14 -20.89 21.033 34179.619 19699.29 11.577 0.03236

The summary of the fitted model of the livebirths
series is shown in Table 1. The estimates of the
parameters of the proposed univariate models
including the associated standard errors, t-values and
their corresponding significant values are also
reported in Table 1. The associated p-value of the AR
parameter shows that its coefficient is statistically
significant. The estimated coefficients for the
SARIMA model are also significant as revealed by
their p-values. The R2 value for the ARIMA model is
0.824, indicating that over 82% of the total variation
in the series is accounted for by the model, and this
clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of
ARIMA(1,1,0) in modeling the livebirths series. The
value of R2 for the SARIMA model is 0.902 which
shows that more than 90% of the variation in the
series is explained by the model, and the model is
considered to be practically significant. This is an
indicating that the inclusion of the seasonal MA terms
is desirable. The estimate of the residual standard
deviation σ̂  0.199975 for the ARIMA model
implies that the standard deviation of the residuals is
approximately 20% of the level of the series. The
criteria of selecting the better model is based on
minimization of forecast errors, AIC, BIC and on
variance. It is noticeable from Table 2 that the
SARIMA model appears to have performed better
than the ARIMA model, based on the values of their
AIC, BIC and measures of forecasting accuracy. The
result of performance evaluation of the two univariate
models therefore show that SARIMA yields better
forecast compared to the ARIMA model. The ARIMA
model though not as good as the SARIMA model, but
would be suitable for forecasting as well.
Measures of diagnostic verification to determine the
adequacy of the models in representing the
underlying process in the livebirths series were
performed. The acf of the residuals and Ljung-Box
test could be used to check for correlations between

42
 Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46

successive forecast errors. The acfs of the residuals
of the two models show no significant correlation in
the residuals for all the lags, except at lag 0, as
shown in figures 4(a) and 5(a). The big spike at the
beginning is the unimportant lag 0 correlation.
Figures 4(b) and 5(b) give p-values for the Ljung-Box
statistics for each lag up to 10 which are all well
above 0.05, indicating non-significance, which is a
desirable result. The result of the Ljung-Box test on
the residuals for the estimated univariate models
therefore favour accepting the models as effective
models for the persistence in the livebirths series.

Figure 4: (a) acf of residuals and (b) p-values for Q-statistic for ARIMA(1,1,0) model.

Fig. 5: (c) acf of residuals and (d) p-values for Q-statistic for SARIMA(1,1,0)(0,0,1) model.

43
 Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46

Table 3: Actual and Predicted number of Livebirths in Nigeria for period 2005-2007
Year Actual Predicted cases Lower limit Upper limit Predicted Lower limit Upper limit
livebirths from ARIMA cases from
model SARIMA model
Figures

2005 166882.28 166734.03 114222.13 235608.16 177932.06 123271.17 249083.37

2005 168043.07 169893.11 116386.28 240072.19 163786.62 113471.23 229281.47
2005 170364.64 171396.95 117416.50 242197.23 173171.50 119973.06 242419.17
2005 173847.01 174364.91 119449.72 246391.19 177135.37 122719.23 247968.10

2006 154566.01 178518.51 122295.16 252260.55 182097.46 126156.96 254914.43

2006 185486.81 147994.35 101384.41 209127.54 145132.06 100547.36 203167.33
2006 247328.40 206814.54 141679.52 292245.04 207146.65 143511.01 289980.26
2006 340090.79 290923.04 199298.55 411096.89 292038.57 202324.07 408818.70

2007 560020.28 406333.50 278361.17 574180.86 433754.17 300504.51 607203.40

2007 516714.67 733234.72 502306.79 1036117.7 660201.45 457386.98 924202.20
2007 430103.45 504146.80 345368.75 712398.67 464019.10 321472.02 649570.63
2007 300186.61 398262.70 272832.22 562776.19 369996.60 256333.32 517950.51

800000
700000
600000
500000
Livebirths

actual
400000
forecastARIMA
300000
forecastSARIMA
200000
100000
0
2005

2006

2007

Year

Fig. 6: Forecasted livebirths for the ARIMA and the SARIMA models, with the actual Livebirths
The univariate models are used as predictive models Table 3. In order to assess the prediction accuracy,
for making forecasts for future values of livebirths in the forecast mean square error (FMSE), forecast
Nigeria. The results of forecasting for the period mean absolute error (FMAE), and forecast mean
2005-2007 with the univariate models are given in percentage error (FMAPE) were employed. The

44

FMSE for the SARIMA forecasts is lower than
forecasts generated by the ARIMA model. Figure 6 is
the plot of the actual livebirths and the forecasts for
both the ARIMA and SARIMA models, for period
2005-2007. The SARIMA model provides better
forecasts, tending to outperform the ARIMA model
forecasts before the peak in the registered livebirths
of the 1st quarter of 2007. For the remaining part of
2007, the ARIMA model forecasts seem superior.
Generally, the forecasts at the turning point are poor
for the two models. The analysis of the two
univariate time series models suggests that both
models are satisfactory, but SARIMA model
outperformed the ARIMA model.
CONCLUSION: Modelling and prediction of Nigeria
total livebirths are the focus of this study. Univariate
stochastic time series models were developed and
fitted to the quarterly disaggregated total livebirths
series to predict future livebirths in Nigeria based on
past data. The proposed univariate models were
ARIMA(1,1,0) and SARIMA(1,1,0)(0,0,1)4. It was
discovered that the inclusion of the seasonal MA
improved the effectiveness of the model in predicting
future total livebirths in Nigeria. The values of the
measures of forecast performance considered
showed that the models fit the livebirths series well
and are statistically significant. Since the acf’s of the
residuals show that none of the autocorrelations for
lags 1-15 exceed the significance bounds, and the p-
values for the Ljung-Box test statistic are all well
above 0.05, it can be concluded that there is very
little evidence for non-zero autocorrelations in the
errors at lags 1-15. The SARIMA model was chosen
as the more adequate model in predicting future
livebirths because of its good prediction performance
and lower values of AIC and BIC, compared with the
ARIMA model. It is necessary to forecast future
livebirths of a population like Nigeria in order to
determine forecast demands of this demographic
phenomenon on our various systems such as
education, health, economy, and provision of social
amenities for future population over a period of time.
The Nigeria birth rate though has declined, but the
total livebirths is on the increase as revealed by the
result of this study.
Data from vital registration on live births are likely to
be inadequate in a developing nation like Nigeria,
due to poor record keeping culture. A critical
45
Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2017, 8(3):34-46
assessment of the data suggests an under-reporting
of live births in 1994 in most Nigerian states. The
data on livebirths for 1994 was therefore discarded,
so that the study is based on total live births data
from 1995-2007; which are more reliable. Despite the
possibility of under-reporting of total livebirths in
Nigeria, it is believed that under-reporting will not
substantially alter the proposed time series models
and the forecast of future livebirths in the country.
There is need to exercise caution in interpreting the
result of the analysis due to the fact that recent
changes in fertility behaviour of Nigerians are not
accounted for in this study; and this could make a
difference when considered. An empirical question to
be investigated in future research is the possiblity to
obtain improved forecasts of total births by
considering stochastic model that incorporates other
factors that have implications on births in Nigeria.
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