IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dem/wpaper/wp-2023-043.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quality of reported ages: a robust re-modification in total modified Whipple’s index

Author

Listed:
  • Afza Rasul

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Jamal Abdul Nasir
  • Domantas Jasilionis

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

  • Dmitri A. Jdanov

    (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany)

Abstract

In demographic research, th accuracy of the reported ages in surveys and censuses is a persistently important issue. The common indexes developed and used to examine the quality of age data are Whipple, Myers, Bachi's, modified Whipple, and the total modified Whipple’s index. The most commonly used and simplest to compute index is the original Whipple's index proposed by George Chandler Whipple. It is a summary measure used to check age heaping on ages ending with digits 0 and 5. The other summary index is the total modified Whipple index (Wtot) by Spoorenberg (2007). A re-modification (RW′tot) is proposed for the total modified Whipple index. The new modification, based on the method of the original Whipple index for all digits (0, 1, 2 … 9), is simple, robust, and easy to interpret. The proposed modification is suitable for social, temporal, and spatial comparisons of the quality of self-reported and interviewer-recorded ages at the time of surveys and censuses. Key Words: Quality of reported ages, Whipple Index, Modified Whipple Index, Total Modified Whipple index

Suggested Citation

  • Afza Rasul & Jamal Abdul Nasir & Domantas Jasilionis & Dmitri A. Jdanov, 2023. "Quality of reported ages: a robust re-modification in total modified Whipple’s index," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2023-043, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2023-043
    DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2023-043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2023-043.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2023-043?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:cai:poeine:pope_704_0729 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:cai:popine:popu_p1992_47n4_1041 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    quality of reported ages; whipple index; modified whipple index; total modified whipple index;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2023-043. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Wilhelm (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.