P4 Date of birth What is (name's) exact date of birth? (Write the Day, Month, and Year) _ _ /_ _ /_ _
Question P4 and P5: Age and date of birth
90. Record the person's exact date of birth as follows:
ii. Month using a 2 - digit code; and
iii. Year using a 2 - digit code, recording only the last two digits of the year of birth.
91. For example, if somebody was born on Thursday, 17th February 2001, record the Date of Birth as 17/02/01.
92. Write the current age (of the person) in completed years. If the person is an infant under one year of age, write "00", e.g. if you find a baby in the Household aged 2 months, write "00". If the person is aged 71/2 years, write 07.
93. Though the questions on age and date of birth are some of the most important in the census, they may be the most difficult to answer. You will find many people who do not know neither their date of birth nor their age. In such cases you will have to probe to estimate the date of birth and hence the age.
94. The best source of information would be birth, immunization or baptism certificates. Ask to see any of such documents if they are available, and use them.
95. Some people may not know their age but may know when they were born. Ask, "When was this person born?" If the age is not known but the year of birth is given, then you will compute the age of the person. If the person has already had her/his birth day subtract the year of birth from the current year (2002), otherwise subtract the year of birth from last year (2001).
96. In case the day of the month of birth is not known but the year of birth is known then you subtract year of birth from current year. If the date of birth is known, calculate the age.
97. One reliable date of birth of one of the Household members may help you to work out the birth dates of other members if it is known whether they are older or younger and by how many years.
98. If all else fails, make the best estimate you can, judging by such things as the person's appearance and position in the Household and by using your common sense knowledge that parents are seldom younger than fifteen years of age when their first child is born, that women do not usually bear children below the age of twelve or over fifty years, that people who were in the same class at school are generally similar in age and so on.