Form B: Household questionnaire Part 2
Individual particulars
For all persons
[Questions 1 to 6 were asked of all persons]
[5] Age _ _
Age in completed years
[] 00 Less than 1 year
[] 01 1 year
[] 02 2 years
?
[] 97 97 years
[] 98 98 years and over
52. Instructions for filing-in Column 1 to 23 of Form B: Part 2
You have to collect information in part 2 for all persons mentioned in Statement and Statement 1.2 of Part 1. Some of the following questions have been answered in Part 1. Therefore there will be no need to ask these questions again. In such cases all you have to do is to copy the information in the appropriate columns.
58. Column 5: Age
The age of every person must be stated in completed years only, as on March 3, 2004. For those who know their birthdays, the age to be recorded is the age as at last birthday. "Age in completed years only" means that all the ages must be recorded in full years discarding fractions of years and months.
58.1 For instance, 15 years 11 months should be written down as 15. Do not write down months. Only years are required.
The age of all infants who are less than one year old should be recorded as "00". In this connection you are requested to make sure that infants of the household even if one day or less than one day old as on Survey Night are invariably enumerated. It is again pointed out that you should take all precautions to enumerate children (less than age 14) and infants (less than 1 year). Unless you ask probing questions they are likely to be omitted. This is a very important instruction that you should bear in mind always.
58.2 What to do when a person does not know his/her age?
For such a person use any of the following methods to estimate his/her age:
(1) You may ask him/her to state the year of birth according to animal calendar. Based on the information furnished and using the conversion table given to you, record the age carefully in completed years.
(2) (i) Ask him/her to name any historical event (preferably a local one) which he/she has been told as having occurred around the time of his/her birth. You may be given a list of historical events for this purpose and you may suggest a suitable event from this list also.
(ii) Ask him/her to give an indication of how old he/she was when that historical event occurred.
(iii) Then use this information to work out his/her age. For example, if a respondent tells you that he/she was about 20 years old when Cambodia attained Independence, his or her age may be about 20+50 (November 9, 1953 to March 3, 2004) = 70 years.
(3) Sometimes the age can be ascertained with reference to the age of another person of known age, who may be living in the same household or in the neighboring household or that of a well-known person of the village chief.
(4) Only as a last resort you should be estimate a person's age from his/her physical features. If you are obtaining information about an absent person from a third person then obviously you have to rely on the information supplied by the third person in estimating the age in respect of the person who is absent. You should not leave this column blank under any circumstances.