Questionnaire Text

Questionnaire form view entire document:  text  image

Household schedule to be completed by the enumerator, listing every man, woman and child in each household at midnight on Monday, 12th September, 1966.
[Questions 1-4 were asked of all persons]


4. Age in completed years.

If under 1 year write 0
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Questionnaire instructions view entire document:  text  image

35. Column 4: Age: This should be shown in completed years, i.e., for a new-born child and children aged less than one year write their ages as "0"; if a child is aged more than one year but less than two years -- if it is aged one year and eleven months for example -- it should be recorded as '1".


36. Many people, particularly old people, may not know their age and you will have to help them work it out. One way of doing this is to ask about how old the person was at the time of a well-known happening in the past, the date of which is known, and then add his age at that time to the difference between the date of the happening and 1966. Or you could ask whether the person is older or younger than someone in the village whose age is known and who appears to be about the same age. For example, if a man does not know his age you could begin by asking him if he remembers the big influenza endemic which occurred in 1918 and if he does how old was he then? Was he less than 5 years old? Or more than 5 years old? If he was less than 5 years old, was he 4 years, or 3 years, or 2 years, etc.? If he was more than 5 years old, was he less than 10 years old? If he was less than 10 years you should try to find out which of the ages between 5 years and 9 years he was then. If he was more than 10 years old, was he less than 15 years? If he was less than 15 years old, you should try again to discover his exact age; if he was older than 15 years, you should then ask was he less than 20 years old? By continuing your questions in this manner, you should be able to arrive at a fair estimate of his age in 1918 and if you add 48 to this you can write down his age, now in 1966. You can discover the age of this man's wife by asking whether she is older than her husband or whether she is younger and by how many years is she older or younger? If the age of the eldest child of these parents is known you can find the ages of the parents by enquiring how old they were when this child was born, and adding these ages to the present age of the child. You should remember that it is unlikely that either parent would be younger than 15 or 16 years at the birth of their first child and this fact should always be used as a check on the accuracy of ages given by, or estimated for, the parents.
37. Some people may be able to tell you the years in which they were born and by subtracting this from 1966 you can calculate their age. Their year of birth is to be recorded in Column 8.