Assessing the Quality of Adult Education Reporting in Brazilian Censuses by Region Using Survival Measures

Tamara Santos, Vienna Institute of Demography
Marília Nepomuceno, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Cássio Maldonado Turra, CEDEPLAR UFMG

Education plays a key role in demographic analysis, influencing factors such as mortality, health, migration, marriage, and fertility. There is also a recent effort to consider educational attainment as a third demographic dimension, improving the discussion of how different educational trend scenarios might affect population growth. Accurate measurement of educational attainment is required to ensure the validity and continuity of research in this area. However, country-specific studies have identified misreporting in self-reported education in major surveys and censuses, with evidence suggesting that errors vary by sex, age, and educational level. This study aims to assess the quality of self-reported education and provide evidence on how it affects estimates of the educational gradient in adult mortality across Brazil and its regions. We use data from the 1991 and 2000 Brazilian censuses and estimate life expectancy using the variable-r and intercensal survival ratios methods. Our results reveal inconsistencies in educational data, particularly in the three lowest socioeconomic regions, with women exhibiting more pronounced errors than men. While internal migration might explain some discrepancies, the volume required to significantly affect survival patterns appears unrealistically high. Future analyses will include data from the 2022 Brazilian census.

Keywords: Data and Methods, Census data, Human Capital, Education, and Work, Mortality and Longevity

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