Proposed variant of Myers' Index

Abstract

This paper extends the Alternative Myers’ index Pal et al. (2014) as a common measure of the quality of age reporting in addition to Pal et al. (2014) past development using the data of selected Asian countries. The most recent wave of country-specific demographic and health survey data is used for the present study. Three different versions of the Myers’ index are proposed. The proposed versions are calculated by replacing the original population with a person-year approach. When proposed variants are compared with the alternative version, the proposed modified variants seem to be appropriate as they fall closer to the original Myer index values. In contrast, alternative index values are distant from the standard Myers’ index values. Moreover, the results of the analysis extended to compare the proposed variants and alternative index across the place of residence and the education status of the respondents. Finally, in all these comparisons the results revealed to be in the same direction that the modified variants are better in terms of distance than an alternative index with the standard Myers’ index values.