Abstract
This paper presents, tests, applies, and compares methods that utilize age data collected at consecutive censuses to examine and adjust for age and coverage errors. The Demeny-Shorter method, for example, was devised for this purpose, and its flexibility in regard to census coverage errors is examined. The Demeny-Shorter method is found difficult to apply directly, so a method based on the same idea as the Demeny-Shorter method but utilizing age data from three, instead of two, successive censuses is presented and discussed as a possible alternative. This three-census method is applied to data from Turkey’s censuses and, in some cases, found to be better than the Demeny-Shorter method, because the former allows for and estimates the likely changes in census coverage and different patterns of age errors in successive censuses. Unfortunately, the three-census method cannot be applied to data from most developing countries on account of a lack of the requisite series of censuses.
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Ntozi, J.P.M. The demeny-shorter and three-census methods for correcting age data. Demography 15, 509–521 (1978). https://doi.org/10.2307/2061203
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2061203