Quality of age reporting in the census of Turkey

Sebnem Canpolat, Hacettepe University

The main purpose of this study is to examine the quality of age data that compiled from the population censuses of Turkey up to now by means of some basic indicators, to make analysis of the age reporting quality in the population censuses and to reach the smoothed age distribution. In this study, Myers, Whipple and UN Age-Sex Accuracy (Joint Score) indexes were used to measure the level of age misreporting, and the consistency of population data was checked by drawing population pyramids and the graphs of population by year of birth. As a result of analyses, it was observed that there was a significant improvement in the quality of the age data and age heaping in the population censuses of Turkey in 2000, and also it was observed that the difference in the pattern and level of age misreporting between sexes was decreased.