I played around with ArcGIS again this shift and decided to do something I wanted to try during class on Thursday. In class, I mapped children alive to the job of the male head of household but I wanted to see the relationship between the children born and the children alive categories. So, I figured out how to use an expression as a variable in the map’s legend. The process was not as difficult as I thought it would be and makes the map a lot more insightful for my specific question.
Using this variable really illuminated the difference in perceptions of childhood mortality. At least half of the households on the map have had at least one of their children die. The fact that these are relevant census categories shows how common it is as well. Asking how many children you’ve had born vs alive isn’t a normal question currently because most children live into adulthood.