Age structure and age heaping: solving Ireland’s post-Famine digit preference puzzle

Christopher L. Colvin; Stuart Henderson; Eoin McLaughlin

doi:10.1093/ereh/heae012

Age structure and age heaping: solving Ireland’s post-Famine digit preference puzzle

Christopher L. Colvin
, Stuart Henderson
, Eoin McLaughlin

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

57 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The quality of age reporting in Ireland worsened in the years after the 1845–1852 Great Irish Famine, even as measures of educational attainment improved. We show how Ireland’s age structure partly accounts for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23–32-year-olds) used in conventional indices of age heaping. Any quantification of age heaping patterns must therefore be interpreted considering an older underlying population which is inherently more likely to heap. We demonstrate how age heaping indices can adjust for such demographic change by introducing age standardization.

Original language	English
Article number	heae012
Pages (from-to)	28-48
Number of pages	21
Journal	European Review of Economic History
Volume	29
Issue number	1
Early online date	3 Sept 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/heae012
Publication status	Published (in print/issue) - 28 Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data generated by the methods described in this paper are reported in a series of appendix tables (tables A3–A6), which are available as online supplementary material alongside Stata replication files. The underlying population data used in this article are available as a collection in the UK Data Service online repository: Clarkson, L.A., Kennedy, L., Crawford, E.M. and Dowling, M.W. (2011). Database of Irish historical statistics: population, 1821–1911. UK Data Service, SN: 3578, URL: http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-3578-1.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities

Keywords

ireland
age heaping
famine
standardisation
human capital
historical
demography

Access to Document

10.1093/ereh/heae012Licence: CC BY

Age structure and age heaping - solving Ireland’s post-famine digit preference puzzleFinal published version, 2.1 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Age structure and age heaping: solving Ireland{\textquoteright}s post-Famine digit preference puzzle",

abstract = "The quality of age reporting in Ireland worsened in the years after the 1845–1852 Great Irish Famine, even as measures of educational attainment improved. We show how Ireland{\textquoteright}s age structure partly accounts for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23–32-year-olds) used in conventional indices of age heaping. Any quantification of age heaping patterns must therefore be interpreted considering an older underlying population which is inherently more likely to heap. We demonstrate how age heaping indices can adjust for such demographic change by introducing age standardization.",

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AU - McLaughlin, Eoin

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AB - The quality of age reporting in Ireland worsened in the years after the 1845–1852 Great Irish Famine, even as measures of educational attainment improved. We show how Ireland’s age structure partly accounts for this seemingly conflicting pattern. Specifically, we argue that a greater propensity to emigrate typified the youngest segment (23–32-year-olds) used in conventional indices of age heaping. Any quantification of age heaping patterns must therefore be interpreted considering an older underlying population which is inherently more likely to heap. We demonstrate how age heaping indices can adjust for such demographic change by introducing age standardization.

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KW - age heaping

KW - famine

KW - standardisation

KW - human capital

KW - historical

KW - demography

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IS - 1

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ER -

Age structure and age heaping: solving Ireland’s post-Famine digit preference puzzle

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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