Demography and age heaping: Solving Ireland's post-famine digit preference puzzle

Eoin McLaughlin, Christopher Colvin and Stuart Henderson

No 22-07, QUCEH Working Paper Series from Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History

Abstract: Age heaping in Ireland worsened in the years after the Great Irish Famine, even as other measures of educational attainment improved. We show how demography can account 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 digit preference. Quantification of heaping must be interpreted in light of an older underlying population which is more likely to heap. We propose how digit preference indices can adjust for such demographic change by introducing age standardisation.

Keywords: age heaping; human capital; demography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J10 N33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Working Paper: Demography and age heaping: solving Ireland’s post-famine digit preference puzzle (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202207

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