Analyzing the Quality of Age Reporting from Population Censuses for All Countries of the World: 1950-2020 Census Rounds

Rafaella de Oliveira Carnevali , Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
Patrick Gerland, United Nations Population Division

Age is a fundamental variable in demography and the quality of age reporting reveals important population aspects such as socioeconomic development, education attainment, and civil registration quality. This paper main goal was to assess the quality of age reporting for all countries census data for 1950-2020 census rounds. We have estimated several age heaping indexes in order to capture the trend of age distribution over this 70 year period. These age heaping indexes were also estimated for men and women, as well as urban and rural areas, in order to grasp how the differences between these patterns behavior trough time. Regarding our results, we did observe a trend toward lower proportions of age heaped, meaning a better declaration of age. Women’s age reporting was more heaped than for men. For rural areas, the heaping was more intense than for urban areas, with a slightly diminishing trend within these differences.

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 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy