A reliability assessment of the age-sex data from 1991 and 2006 Nigeria population censuses

Abstract

<p>This study assessed the quality of the age-sex data from 1991 and 2006 Nigeria population censuses using some conventional techniques of evaluating demographic data quality. Whipple and Myers indices were used to determine the extent of digit preference for the age-sex data presented in single years. There were very obvious preference for ages with end-digits 0 and 5 while other end-digits were avoided in the two censuses; and this was more pronounced with the females than males. From 1991 census to 2006 census, the Whipple index for both sexes declined from 294 to 251, while the Myers index declined from 60.8 to 49.9; indications of deficiencies in the Nigeria censuses data. The Joint scores computed for the five-year abridged distribution of the age-sex data yielded 54.83 and 38.52 for the 1991 and 2006 censuses, respectively. This showed that the data are poor in quality and not completely reliable as a result of misreporting. The 29.7% decline in Joint score from 1991 census to 2006 census was an indication of a modest improvement in quality over than fifteen years interval, even as the 2006 age-sex data are usable with adjustment.</p>