Questionnaire form
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P06 Date of birth or age
Questionnaire instructions
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Column P06: Date of Birth or Age
An individual's age is a very important variable in the data analysis of the census. For this reason you should try your very best to obtain this information as accurately as possible. To do this you should try in every way possible to ensure that each individual gives you his/her date of birth, expressed as much as possible in the form of day, month and year. For example, for those who don't automatically remember the date of their birth, a national identity card, a passport, a driver's license, a vaccination form, etc., are all documents which you could resort to for information, either complete or partial, about individuals' birth dates. To record the answer in the questionnaire 2 cases should be distinguished:
a) The information related to the date of birth is complete. In this case, you know from the person whose presence you are in the day, month and year of his/her birth; for example, October 12, 1953. Convert this information to a numeric format, with the month of birth especially corresponding to an ordinal number. There are 12 months in a year, and an ordinal number is a 2-figure number from 1 to 12 (including 1 and 12), which indicates the order of the month in the year. Thus: January=01, February=02, March=03, April=04, May=05, June=06, July=07, August=08, September=09, October=10, November=11, December=12. So the 12th of October, 1953 is the same as 12/10/1953 or just 12/10/53. For the purposes of the census it is this last numerical expression of the date of birth, in which the year of birth is expressed as a function of the last 2 numbers, which should be applied. Thus, 1953=53; 1907=07; and 1996=96. A month has between 28 and 31 days. Here also, it is acceptable that the date of birth be expressed in numbers, in particular for the first 9 days of the month. Thus it is possible to fill in each of the spaces in the numbering grids reserved for the day (J), the month (M) and the year (Y) of birth. For someone born on October 12, 1953, you should record the information as follows:
/1/2/ /1/0/ /5/3/
If the information related to the date of birth is incomplete, which is generally the case of someone born around 19__ (year of only), in this case record the available information in the numbering grids as previously. Wherever the information is not available, the spaces in the corresponding numbering grid should remain empty.
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For all persons born in the year 1900 or earlier, for example 1896, 1892, etc., do not write anything in the space reserved for the date of birth, even if partial or complete information is available. In these cases, write "98" in the numbering grid reserved for age.
For example: an individual was born in March 1967, but no day is given; another was born around 1945, but no other information about the date is available; and a third was born around 1896. You should record the information as follows:
a) J:/_/_/ M:/0/3/ A:/_6/7/
b) J: /_/_/ M: /_/_/ A: /4/5/
c) J: /_/_/ M: /_/_/ A: /_/_/
/9/8/
Notice that the 2 spaces of the grid shown below are empty in the 2 cases where there is partial or incomplete information about the birth date when the birth date is after December 31, 1990, because this date is written in the grid space provided for that purpose.
If, however, the date of birth is prior to January 1, 1901, then simply write "98" in the grid space intended for age. You should remember this rule well.
d) In cases where, in spite of your best efforts you are not able to obtain complete or partial information related to age from the person being interviewed, you should, with his/her help or the help of a relative, estimate his/her age in complete years.
For children aged less than 10 months, write their age using 2 numbers: use 00 for 0 years old, that is, for a child of less than 1 year; use 01 for a child of 1 year; 05 for a child of 5 years, and so on.
Note: For all persons aged 98 or more or born before January 1, 1901, record the number "98" in the space in the numbering grid reserved for age. For example: for a baby of 4 months, a 9 year old individual, another aged 69, a third aged 98 and a fourth aged 103, you should write the information as follows:
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a) J: /_ /_ / M: /_ /_ / A: /_ /_ /
/ 0 / 0/
b) J: /_ /_ / M: /_ /_ / A: /_ /_ /
/ 0 / 9 /
c) J: /_ /_ / M: /_ /_ / A: /_ /_ /
/ 6 / 9 /
d) J: /_ /_ / M: /_ /_ / A: /_ /_ /
/ 9 / 8 /
e) J: /_ /_ / M: /_ /_ / A: /_ /_ /
/ 9 / 8 /
Note: For children younger than about 5, it is greatly desired that you get this information in the form of a birth date. You should do everything possible to help the parents give you exact information or a useful document (vaccination form, birth certificate, baptism record, etc) so that you can gather this information in the desired format.