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New adjustment procedure for distortion in age distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Afza Rasul

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

  • Jamal Abdul Nasir
  • Dmitri A. Jdanov

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

Abstract

Accurate age data is a prerequisite for any demographic inquiry. Unfortunately, in many developing countries visible age heaping is present in census and survey data of reported age at the time of census or survey. In this article, a new method is proposed for age adjustment of the respondent current age at the time of interview/data collection. The method is based on the rectangular distribution probabilities for terminal digits of age. The algorithms-based method is used to estimate true/adjusted age distribution in the presence of age heaping/age misreporting. Application of the method is performed on the most recent demographic and health survey data from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Ethiopia, and Gambia. UN Criteria for age accuracy is used to check the accuracy of adjusted/true age distribution. The result revealed that after adjustment of the terminal digit by the proposed method of digit shift the adjusted age distributions are perfectly accurate. The method will be applicable to survey and census data. The method will be very useful in fertility analysis where the individual year of age of women plays an important role.

Suggested Citation

  • Afza Rasul & Jamal Abdul Nasir & Dmitri A. Jdanov, 2024. "New adjustment procedure for distortion in age distribution," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2024-001, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2024-001
    DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2024-001
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    JEL classification:

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

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