Section D: Questions about the Population
Enumerator: Ask questions to all of the people listed in Section C.
4. What is (the person)'s age?
_ _write the age in completed years
P4. What is (the person's) age?
This Question is also important because it will allow us to analyze all the information in terms of age. For example, illiteracy, unemployment and mortality rates are calculated based on people's ages.
Write the age of each member of the household correctly.
The person's age should be indicated in numbers of completed years according to their last birthday. For instance, if the person was born on August 31, 2006, they has not yet completed 1 year old on August 1, 2007. In this situation, the Enumeration Form should be filled out as follows: |0|0|0|. If the person is 9 years old, you should write |0|0|9|in the Enumeration Form.
Be aware that:
The age is to be written in 3 digits. If the person being enumerated is 7 years old, write 00 before the age, as in: |0|0|7|.
To determine the age of persons who do not know how old they are:
1- Ask when the person was born and look up that date in the table for age conversion (Attachment A)
2 - In case the person does not know their birth year, request their I.D., Birth Certificate or other document issued by official establishments which can be used to see the person's age or birth year. (Please see in Attachments the CONVERSION TABLE).
If the Enumerator cannot determine the age through those methods, they should try to obtain it by comparing it to other members whose age is known, or using the following procedure:
a) Use the dates of local or national historical events so that the person can try to remember their age or date of birth. To the age the person was at the time of that event, you should add up the number of years passed since the event and calculate their actual age.
b) Compare the physical characteristics of the person whose age is unknown with someone else's whose age is known.
Pay close attention to the children (if they can walk already they may be around 1 year old, or if they can speak they may be around 2).
c) To determine a child's age, if the mother has more children, you should:
- Know the age of one of the children
- Follow the order and interval between their birth so you can calculate the age of the child whose age is unknown.
d) For the cases which are difficult to calculate the age do not look for easy solutions by simply attributing them ages ending in zero or five. One should always distinguish the ages in years, as for example 36, 43, 78, etc.