Influence of Literacy on India’s Tendency for Age Misreporting: Evidence from Census 2011

Abstract

The quality of age reporting in the recently released single-year age data from the Indian Census 2011 is examined. Besides analyzing whether there was any significant improvement in quality from 2001 to 2011, the paper investigates whether there is a relationship between growth in the literacy rate and the quality of age-reporting. Modified digit-specific and total Whipple’s indices are used to check patterns in digit preferences/avoidances among Indians in the two censuses. Correlation coefficients are estimated to analyze the influence of literacy on the tendency for age-misreporting among the Indian population. The total Whipple’s modified index declined from 5.5 to 2.9 between 2001 and 2011.The correlation coefficient of the association between growth in the literacy rate and quality of age reporting is significant (r = -0.92; p<0.01). We conclude that India has made remarkable progress in improving the quality of age reporting in the population Census during the last decade, and that education played a vital role. It may be expected that increased literacy will further improve the quality of age data in states and areas still lagging behind.