A single year age adjustment procedure from a just available post census 5-year grouped data: an application on 2001 Indian census data

Barun Kumar Mukhopadhyay, ISI, Kolkata (retired)

Adjustments to raw age data in censuses of developing countries are essential because of huge amount of errors. There are some methods especially in United Nations. And individual country has also her own methods. However, the present work is based on only the 5-year grouped data which are usually available in the websites just a few months after the census is over. The official adjusted data are available after long time gap. Hence as an alternative, the present paper tries to use those preliminary data to get an adjusted single year age data for the researchers. The paper follows a number of steps starting right from cumulation of the data once in a more than type and other in a less than type, so that the distribution approaches toward a smoothed series. But the final adjustment is done by fitting two 3rd degree polynomials taking cumulated male and female populations. The adjusted data are found consistent and follows the usual pattern of correct age distribution.