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Description

AGEMONTH gives the age in months of persons younger than one year old (AGE =0) on census day.

Comparability

AGEMONTH is available in the samples of Canada, Great Britain 1851, and the United States.

Enumerators were instructed to record the data as fractions; "under one month 0, thence in fractions 1/12, 2/12, 3/12, etc., up to 11/12."

It appears that enumerators were not diligent in writing "0" for children younger than one month old. The 1881 Canadian Census Project staff manually edited AGE to be 0 for everyone who was younger than 12 months old. If AGE was 30 days or fewer, AGEMONTH was set equal to 0.

In the Canada census, if one person's age was 0, the data entry operator entered the months elapsed between that person's birth month and 31 March 1901.

In the 1851 Great Britain sample, age was recorded in months for infants less than one year, e.g. "1 month", "2 months" etc.

In the 1910 United States sample, AGEMONTH reports the age in months of persons beyond one year of age. Indeed, an 18-month-old would be coded 1 in AGE and 6 in AGEMONTH; a 6-month-old would also be coded 6 in AGEMONTH, but would be coded 0 in AGE. For this reason, AGEMONTH must be used alongside the AGE variable.

Most users who analyze the AGEMONTH over the long-term will want to select only persons for whom AGE = 0, to achieve comparability across years.

Age in months was originally recorded as a fraction of a year on the census form. The enumerator instructions suggest that the response be recorded as some number over 12, but the frequency distributions indicate that some enumerators recorded it as a rounded number (often as "1/2," coded in the samples as 6 months - the most common code in all years) instead of the exact figure. Enumerators in the 1850-1880 samples recorded children who were younger than one month as being one month old. Respondents often rounded up the ages of eleven-month-olds to age 1.

Universe

Availability

• Canada: 1881, 1891, 1901
• Great Britain: 1851
• United States: 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1880, 1900, 1910