Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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REPORT Of< *HE CENSUS Of BURMA.
47
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CHAPTER IV.
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Age, Sex and Civil Condition.
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65. In the following paragraphs the age, sex and civil condition of the
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Age returns to be a a
first considered.
population r r of the province r are discussed. There is no
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more obvious a natural division of the inhabitants of
a country than into males and females, and, speaking theoretically, the separation
of the enumerated into sexes should be the first of the matters dealt with in this
chapter to engage our attention. Following, however, the order prescribed for
adoption, we will .in the first place consider what are the principal facts to be
learned from a consideration of the figures of the ages of the people who were
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enumerated in Burma on the ist March igoi.
66. The " age " for census purposes was invariably the total number of years
The ages returned. Definition the person concerned had completed. Professor
"
of- " age " and classification of von Mayr in his Statistik and Gesellschaftslehre has
agesshown
how no system of age recording can be looked
upon as wholly satisfactory that does not provide for an exact record of the year
of birth of each person enumerated. In a country like Burma, where horoscopes
are common, the data relating to dates of birth would in all probability be comparatively
trustworthy, but India as a whole has doubtless not yet reached that stage
of culture that would enable reliable results under this head to be obtained. As in
1 89 1, the system adopted in the classification of ages at the 1901 census was on
the whole quinquennial. The first five years of life were, it is true, tabulated
separately, but from thence onwards the ages were grouped by fives till
59 was
reached, after which all ages of 60 and over were dealt with together. It is thus
that ages are shown in Imperial Table VII, the table most intimately connected -
with the ages of the people. Age-periods are shown also in Table VIII (Education),
in Table XII (Infirmities), in Table XIV (Civil condition by age for selected
races) and in Table XVIII (Europeans, &c, by race and age), but it is only in
the Infirmities table that they are given in as much detail as in Table VII.
67. Much has been written about the probable want of accuracy in the age-
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returns obtained at censuses, of the general ignorance
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of their ages displayed by the people, of the tendency
of the enumerated to return their ages in multiples of five or ten, of the habit of substituting
the current year of life for the number of completed years and of
other innocent causes of error, to say nothing of the incentives to wilful misstatement
afforded on the one hand by vanity and on the other by a revenue system
which gives exemption from certain forms of taxation to persons of below and
above certain ages. Some of these disturbing factors exist, no doubt, in Burma,
and it would be vain to look- for anything approaching absolute accuracy in the
age-figures secured. Still, when everything is taken into consideration, I should
be disposed to think that the data regarding age extracted from the Burma schedules
were probably a closer approximation to the actual facts than those obtained
in any other province of the Empire ;
in fact, in the matter of accuracy, not far
behind those of many European countries.
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68. Subsidiary Table No. IVA appended to this chapter gives the unadjusted;
ages of 100,000 of each sex.
U ad' ted ape-retum
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The figures have been
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- specially obtained from the schedules of a few representative
townships of Upper and Lower Burma. The localities chosen were such
as did not exhibit an undue preponderance of foreign immigrants, and may, I consider,
be taken as-fairly typical of the province as a whole. It presents no very
striking divergencies from the figures given in the table printed at page. 109 of the
1 89 1 report. The same phenomena are apparent throughout in both ; the
inevitable popularity of the multiples of five and ten, the first decline among males
from four figures to three at the age of 29, and from three figures to two at the
age of 69, the high" place, taken by 3 in the first five years of life. It is clear, that
rough the same causes, have been at work in both tables, When> however, we