Reliability in Wife’s Reporting of Age and Education of Husband in India

Kailash Chandra Das, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Tarun Kumar Roy, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Pradeep Kumar Tripathy, Utkal University

Age and education of the couples are two very basic indicators which are collected in almost each and every demographic and health surveys. Most of the demographic surveys takes into consideration wife's reporting of age and education of the husband as the basis for all further analysis. But the important question arises about the reliability of such reporting. The main objective of the paper is to analyse pattern, trend as well as the determinants of mismatch in wife's reporting of age and education of the husband . The study is based on the data of third round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3, 2005-06) of India. It collected information about age and education of the husband separately from the husband as well as from the wife by interviewing 42185 currently married couples. The mismatch in wife's reporting of age and education in India is 58 percent and 33 percent respectively.