Economic History Review, 65, 1 (2012), pp.

304–313

How did women count? A note on

gender-specific age heaping differences
in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries1
By PETER FÖLDVÁRI,* BAS VAN LEEUWEN,** and
JIELI VAN LEEUWEN-LI

The role of human capital in economic growth is now largely uncontested. One
indicator of human capital frequently used for the pre-1900 period is age heaping,
which has been increasingly used to measure gender-specific differences. In this note,
we find that in some historical samples, married women heap significantly less than
unmarried women. This is still true after correcting for possible selection effects. A
possible explanation is that a percentage of women adapted their ages to that of their
husbands, hence biasing the Whipple index. We find the same effect to a lesser extent
for men. Since this bias differs over time and across countries, a consistent compari-
son of female age heaping should be made by focusing on unmarried women.

he role of human capital in economic growth is largely uncontested.2

T Recently, research in this field has started to focus on the effect of gender
inequality in education on economic growth, often finding a negative relation.3
However, for the pre-1900 period, data on human capital are scarce, so researchers
have reverted to proxies. In the last few decades, age heaping has began to fulfil
that role.4 Age heaping describes the tendency of people with a lower level of
human capital/numeracy to round off their ages to multiples of five (such as 25, 30,
35, and so on).5 This is expressed in the form of the so-called Whipple index,
defined as the number of people ending their ages in 0 or 5 divided by 1/5 of the
total sample, multiplied by 100. Consequently, a Whipple index of 100 indicates
no heaping, while a Whipple index larger than 100 indicates a certain degree of
heaping. Clearly, a higher level of age heaping indicates less human capital or less
strict numeracy. Hence, most studies find a strong negative relationship between
literacy and the Whipple index.6 Within the general trend of an increase in the

1
We would like to thank three anonymous referees for their extensive comments on an earlier version of this
article.
2
See, for example, Schultz, ‘Investment’; Becker, Human capital; Lucas, ‘Mechanics’; Romer, ‘Technological
change’.
3
For example, Barro and Lee, ‘Sources’; D. Dollar and R. Gatti, ‘Gender inequality, income, and growth: are
good times good for women?’, World Bank Policy Research Report on Gender and Development working paper
ser. no. 1 (1999); Klasen, ‘Low schooling for girls’.
4
Mokyr, Why Ireland starved; Crayen and Baten, ‘New evidence’; A’Hearn, Baten, and Crayen, ‘Quantifying
quantitative literacy’; Clark, Farewell to alms.
5
Although the heaping at multiples of five dominates, some authors have found other heaping patterns as well.
For example, de Moor and van Zanden, ‘Uit fouten kun je leren’, pp. 63–5, and Thomas, ‘Numeracy’, pp. 125–7,
show that heaping on other numbers also happened, such as multiples of 12 and even numbers.
6
Nagi, Stockwell, and Snavley, ‘Digit preference’; Crayen and Baten, ‘Global trends’.
© Economic History Society 2011. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
 HOW DID WOMEN COUNT? 305
number of age heaping studies in recent years, gender-specific age heaping studies
have also become increasingly common in the literature.7
Many studies look at gender-specific human capital in the medieval and early
modern periods. Those that focus on literacy generally find that women are well
behind men (up to 20 percentage points).8 Yet, as recent research has shown, the
gender difference in age heaping is small.9 Sometimes, women even have lower age
heaping (and hence higher numeracy) than men. This result seems strange, since
it not only deviates from the picture suggested by other measures of human capital,
but also fails to find support in other material on numeracy. Indeed, as Thomas
observed for early modern England: ‘[w]omen lagged behind in numeracy,
perhaps even more than they did in literacy’,10 while the Revd Andrew Urquhart
found in a statistical survey of Portpatrick in 1832 that women were only slightly
behind men in reading, but much further behind in simple arithmetic.11
In this note, we argue that age heaping can be a misleading measure of
numeracy if its interrelatedness with marriage is not taken into account. Age
heaping differences between the two genders are much lower in the case of married
couples than in the case of the non-married population, even after correcting for
possible differences in their age structure and selection effects (where data avail-
ability makes it possible).
There are basically three possible explanations for finding lower age heaping for
married than for unmarried women. The first one is selection, that is, a possible
tendency that spouses were selected on the basis of their abilities and skills, among
others numeracy. The second one is learning within marriage, namely, that wives
learned basic arithmetic skills from their spouses, making it possible for them to
report their age with greater accuracy. If these explanations are valid, the age
heaping statistics of married women reflect the truth and can be trusted.We argue,
however, that these two factors alone, even though there are certainly numerous
examples of both, cannot offer an adequate explanation for the observed lower
level of age heaping among married women in this time period.
What remains as a third explanation is that wives (and to a lesser extent
husbands)12 adjusted their reported ages to that of their spouses, causing an
underestimation of age heaping for women.13 As a result, data on non-married
people should be used when estimating gender differences in numeracy.

7
de Moor and van Zanden, ‘Uit fouten kun je leren’; Manzel and Baten, ‘Gender equality’; Manzel, Baten, and
Stolz, ‘Convergence’.
8
For example, Kuijpers, ‘Lezen en schrijven’, p. 498; Reis, ‘Economic growth’, p. 202.
9
de Moor and van Zanden, ‘Uit fouten kun je leren’, p. 71.
10
Thomas, ‘Numeracy’, p. 113.
11
Tranter, ‘Reverend Andrew Urquhart’, pp. 55–6.
12
In general, women have a higher age heaping that is associated with a lower level of numeracy. See, for
example, de Moor and van Zanden, ‘Uit fouten kun je leren’, p. 71. Hence, if any adaptation takes place, women
adapt to the age of their husbands and much less vice versa. Indeed, we show later in this note that the age heaping
between married and unmarried men is not statistically different, while married women heap significantly less
than unmarried women.
13
For example, de Moor and van Zanden, ibid., pp. 71, 75, also found that age heaping among women was
about equal to that of men, even though literacy (as calculated by the number of people able to sign their names)
was considerably lower for women. They approached this problem by suggesting that women deliberately
exaggerated their level of illiteracy so as not to outshine their husbands who could not write. We look at this from
an opposite perspective and argue that, because their information is partly based on marriage certificates, it is
likely that women adapted their ages to those of their husbands, hence downward biasing age heaping.
© Economic History Society 2011 Economic History Review, 65, 1 (2012)
306 FÖLDVÁRI, VAN LEEUWEN, AND VAN LEEUWEN-LI

120

100

80
No. of observations

60

40

20

0
0

8
10

12

14

16

18

20
0

0
−8

−6

−4

−2
−2

−1

−1

−1

−1

−1

Difference in reported age (husband-wife)

Figure 1. Differences of the reported age of husbands and wives, Norwich Census of the
Poor, 1570
Note: Differences larger than 20 years are not reported due to the low number of observations.
Source: Pound, ed., Norwich Census.

I
A possible indication for age adjustment is apparent in figure 1, which plots the
reported age differences between spouses in the Norwich Census of the Poor from
1570. When there is a tendency to report ages divisible by five, we expect peaks at
0, 5, and 10, which is evident in figure 1. More surprising, however, is the tendency
to prefer even numbers as differences. Even though this is by no means a decisive
proof of age adjustment within marriage, since the real distribution of the age
differences of the spouses is unknown, it does indicate that there might have been
preferences in age differences within marriage as well. If a considerable share of
wives reported their ages as being two or four years different from their husbands,
then the wives of age-heaping husbands would probably be counted as accurate
reporters.
In order to prove our suggestion, we used surveys from different periods stretch-
ing over 400 years.14 We tested two hypotheses: first, that the gender difference in
age heaping is smaller for married individuals than for the rest of the population,
and second, that marriage significantly improves the age heaping of women but not
of men.We tested for possible heaping at even numbers and at multiples of 12, and
even though such secondary patterns were seen in the earliest censuses, they did
not affect the finding that married women heap less than unmarried women.

14
Most censuses are in one way or the other answered by the head of household. This implies that it is unclear
if women reported their own ages. However, in the literature the ages 23–62 are specifically chosen in order to
omit children who might not report their own age. The same argument might apply for women. Furthermore, de
Moor and van Zanden, ibid., p. 66, argue that in the 1796 census for Flanders it is sometimes indicated whether
the head of household reported the ages. Using these data, they show that reporting by the head of household
does not lead to higher age heaping.
© Economic History Society 2011 Economic History Review, 65, 1 (2012)
 HOW DID WOMEN COUNT? 307
Furthermore, estimates were also carried out including only people over the age of
32 in order to avoid other possible non-linearities in heaping; however, this did not
make any significant difference in the results either. Therefore, we focused on
multiples of five, since in general those heaping patterns dominate.
One of the first censuses we used to test this hypothesis was from the Catasto of
Tuscany in 1427, a detailed recording of the population of Tuscany.15 We also used
data from the Norwich Census of the Poor for 1570 and the census of Britain in
1851.16 For an empirical proof, we applied independent sample t-tests (with
unequal variances assumed) to find out if age heaping depends on marital status
and if the relationship of the two genders is affected by marriage (see tables 1–3).17
These estimates show a clear gap in age heaping between married and unmar-
ried women, but no statistically significant difference for men. In order to make
sure that the difference was not caused by the different age structure of the
subsamples, we cross-checked our results with a logit regression analysis, captur-
ing the effect of age on age heaping directly (see table 4).
Once the effect of age on age heaping was captured, we found no effect of
marriage on the age heaping of women in the Norwich sample; we did, however,
find an effect in the 1851 population census of Britain and the 1880 census of the
US. In the latter cases, there seemed to be a marriage effect even for men, albeit
of a lower magnitude. Since the quality of the population censuses of Britain and
the US is incomparably better than that of Norwich, which in addition only
focuses on the poor, we can safely argue that, even after taking into account the
possible impact of age, we still find that marriage is negatively correlated with age
heaping.
Since there is some evidence for selection effects in marriage, one may argue that
only the richer women married; hence, heaping is lower among married women.
However, the US 1880 census also provided indicators of economic status
(occscore, median income in 1950 per occupation, projected on the occupations in
the 1880 census) and social status (sei, a linear combination of income and
education). These selection effects, however, had only a small effect on the mar-
riage coefficient in the regressions. Hence, these socio-economic selection effects
cannot explain the lower heaping of women within marriage.
The final question is whether the observed pattern can be adequately explained
by learning or selection prior to marriage. According to the literature, numeracy
learning in marriage was infrequent. Many authors have argued that basic
numeracy was absorbed during early childhood or when in contact with the
exchange economy in the early modern period.18 Other authors have claimed that

15
Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans, pp. 656–63.
16
Pound, ed., Norwich Census; Minnesota Population Center, North Atlantic Population Project. We also carried
out the tests for Florence in 1427, England in 1881, and the US in 1880, but due to limitations of the length of
research notes, these are not reported. These samples lead to the same conclusions, however.
17
The non-normality of the age heaping should not be a problem since the samples are quite large, and the
t-statistics are asymptotically normal, as suggested by the Central Limit Theorem. We cross-checked our t-test
results by a non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test (no assumption required on the distribution of the population)
and obtained the same results, so the tests are valid and reliable.
18
Spufford, ‘First steps in literacy’, pp. 414–15; Cohen, Calculating people, p. 118; Emigh, ‘Numeracy or
enumeration?’, p. 676.
© Economic History Society 2011 Economic History Review, 65, 1 (2012)
 308

Table 1. Age heaping and gender by marital status, Tuscany, 1427, age group 23–62
Age
Age Age heaping, Age t-statistic of P value of P value of P value of
No. of Average age heaping, heaping, non-married heaping, difference H1: H1: H1:
observations sample female (1) male (2) (3) married (4) (1)-(2) (1)<(2) (1)⫽(2) (1)>(2)

© Economic History Society 2011

Total population 94,667 41.6 306.8 282.8 14.5 1.000 0.000 0.000
Married population 84,519 40.7 293.7 282.7 6.24 1.000 0.000 0.000
Non-married population 10,148 48.6 374.4 285.3 13.6 1.000 0.000 0.000
Total population 94,667 41.6 357.5 288.3 28.7 1.000 0.000 0.000
Men 43,924 42.5 285.3 282.7 0.42 0.662 0.676 0.338
Women 50,743 40.8 374.4 293.7 28.9 1.000 0.000 0.000

Source: Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans, pp. 656–63.

Table 2. Age heaping and gender by marital status, Norwich, 1570, age group 23–62
Age
Age Age heaping, Age t-statistic of P value of P value of P value of
No. of Average age heaping, heaping, non-married heaping, difference H1: H1: H1:
observations sample female (1) male (2) (3) married (4) (1)-(2) (1)<(2) (1)⫽(2) (1)>(2)

Total population 1,065 42.1 282.1 296.1 -0.91 0.182 0.364 0.818
Married population 856 41.2 263.0 299.0 -2.13 0.017 0.034 0.983
FÖLDVÁRI, VAN LEEUWEN, AND VAN LEEUWEN-LI

Non-married population 209 45.2 327.1 238.1 1.52 0.929 0.141 0.071
Total population 1,065 42.1 318.2 280.4 2.02 0.978 0.044 0.022
Men 434 41.8 238.1 299.0 -1.07 0.149 0.298 0.851
Women 630 42.5 328.9 263.0 3.13 0.999 0.002 0.001

Source: Minnesota Population Center, North Atlantic Population Project; Schürer and Woollard, ‘National sample’.

Economic History Review, 65, 1 (2012)

 Table 3. Age heaping and gender by marital status, England and Wales, 1851, age group 23–62
Age
Age Age heaping, Age t-statistic of P value of P value of P value of
No. of Average age heaping, heaping, non-married heaping, difference H1: H1: H1:
observations sample female (1) male (2) (3) married (4) (1)-(2) (1)<(2) (1)⫽(2) (1)>(2)

Total population 172,107 38.3 127.1 125.6 1.43 0.924 0.153 0.076
Married population 106,364 39.6 122.1 124.8 -2.04 0.021 0.041 0.980
Non-married population 65,743 36.3 134.5 127.2 4.25 1.000 0.000 0.000

© Economic History Society 2011

Total population 172,107 38.3 131.2 123.4 7.19 1.000 0.000 0.000
Men 82,539 38.3 127.2 124.8 1.51 0.934 0.132 0.066
Women 89,568 38.3 134.5 122.1 8.33 1.000 0.000 0.000

Source: Minnesota Population Center, North Atlantic Population Project.

Table 4. Logit regression results of the age heaping dummy, age group 23–62
Effect of
Constant Age Occscore Sei Marriage Pseudo R2 marriage at mean N

Norwich, 1570, men -1.248 0.0283 — — 0.466 0.019 0.124 437

(-2.28) (3.08) (1.13)
Norwich, 1570, women -1.762 0.0503 — — -0.166 0.053 -0.058 636
(-4.45) (6.34) (-0.89)
Britain, 1851, men -1.498 0.0119 — — -0.0841 0.003 -0.016 82,539
(-51.29) (16.21) (-4.88)
HOW DID WOMEN COUNT?

Britain, 1851, women -1.402 0.0107 — — -0.148 0.003 -0.028 89,568

(-49.71) (15.67) (-9.47)
US, 1880, men -1.383 0.0144 — — -0.113 0.0039 -0.023 2,679,522
(-277.9) (112.7) (-35.42)
US, 1880, women -1.217 0.0137 — — -0.259 0.063 -0.053 2,517,953
(-219.2) (108.6) (-84.3)
US, 1880, men -1.419 0.0146 0.0108 -0.009 -0.112 0.0055 -0.023 2,679,522
(-251.8) (114.2) (45.8) (-67.45) (-35.2)
US, 1880, women -1.308 0.0144 0.039 -0.017 -0.208 0.086 -0.043 2,517,953
(-223.6) (113.1) (82.2) (-60.8) (-63.3)

Notes: t-statistics are reported in parentheses. The marginal effect of the marriage dummy reflects a higher probability of age heaping in the case of married persons, when evaluated for an
average individual. For the US in 1880, we used a randomly drawn sample (size 25%), because the original data set was too large to handle using our software.
Source: Data for Norwich and Britain as in tabs. 1 and 2.The data for the US were taken from Ruggles,Trent Alexander, Genadek, Goeken, Schroeder, and Sobek, Integrated public use microdata
309

Economic History Review, 65, 1 (2012)

series. Although the NAPP provided the same information, the sei (social economic indicator) and occscore (occupational score) variables were provided by Ruggles et al.
310 FÖLDVÁRI, VAN LEEUWEN, AND VAN LEEUWEN-LI

illiterate women were less in contact with a commercialized economy than men;19
the same applies to married women.20
Unfortunately, there is no direct way to test the validity of the possible expla-
nations, but we can look for indirect proof.There are many widows in our samples.
If they increased their numeracy during their marriages or were selected because
of their better skills, then even after the deaths of their husbands, their numerical
skills would remain superior to those of unmarried women. If, however, women
adapted their ages to those of their husbands, one would expect that, after their
husbands died, they would soon revert to rounding their ages to -5 and -0. We
tested this proposition on the 1851 British and the 1880 US census data. The
results are reported in table 5.
Our results suggest that even after capturing the effect of age on age heaping (the
average age difference between widows and the rest of the female population in the
samples ranging between 8 and 13 years), widows display significantly higher age
heaping than married women in both samples.Their age heaping is statistically not
different from that of the unmarried women in the British census, but slightly
higher than that of the unmarried women in the US. This is also true when
including variables capturing socio-economic status. It seems therefore that
widows are more likely to heap than their married counterparts, which is a strong
indication against selection based on numeracy or learning in marriage.

II
In this note we addressed the issue that the gender difference in age heaping is
much smaller than in other measures of human capital. This is strange, since there
is very little independent additional evidence to support this finding. For several
datasets stretching over four centuries, we found that married women heap sig-
nificantly less than unmarried women; the age heaping difference among married
and non-married men is generally not significant. There are three possible expla-
nations: firstly, that more numerate spouses were preferred (socio-economic
status); secondly, that women improved their numeracy during marriage; or
thirdly, that married women (and to a lesser extent married men) had the tendency
to adapt their ages to those of their husbands. Since men, on average, had lower
age heaping, this reduced the observed age heaping among married women as
well.
Plotting the number of spouses by age difference in marriage for the 1570
Norwich Census of the Poor revealed a remarkable number of couples with an
even number of years age difference. It seems indeed very unlikely that women
only married men who were an even number of years older/younger. This cannot
be explained by either learning or the preference for more numerate spouses. As a
more formal test, we used data on widows. If actual learning in marriage had taken
place, or if more numerate women were preferred as spouses, widows on average
should have a lower level of age heaping than unmarried women. On the other

19
J. Reis, ‘How helpful is age heaping? An exploration using the Portuguese Census of 1940’, paper presented
at the European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon (2008) (http://www2.iisg.nl/esshc/programme.asp?
selyear=9&pap=6569), p. 22.
20
Horrell, Meredith, and Oxley, ‘Measuring misery’, p. 96.
© Economic History Society 2011 Economic History Review, 65, 1 (2012)
© Economic History Society 2011
Table 5. Logit regression results of the age heaping dummy for Britain, 1851, and the US, 1880, age group 23–62
Marginal effect of widow
Constant Age Occscore Sei Widow Pseudo R2 dummy at mean N

Britain, 1851 Widows and married women -1.331 0.005 — — 0.239 0.003 0.0468 61,815
(-36.37) (5.74) (8.95)
Widows and unmarried women -1.641 0.0172 — — -0.035 0.003 -0.0068 36,462
(-39.78) (15.24) (-1.10)
US, 1880 Widows and married women -1.287 0.009 — — 0.379 0.006 0.078 2,130,819
(-222.7) (60.1) (86.0)
Widows and unmarried women -1.527 0.021 — — 0.026 0.013 0.006 670,905
(-165.5) (81.9) (4.06)
US, 1880 Widows and married women -1.332 0.0095 0.0504 -0.024 0.318 0.085 0.065 2,130,819
(-228.7) (64.9) (78.0) (-52.2) (69.9)
Widows and unmarried women -1.624 0.023 0.029 -0.013 0.018 0.016 0.004 670,905
(-166.8) (85.8) (49.0) (-38.0) (2.72)
HOW DID WOMEN COUNT?

Notes: t-statistics are reported in parentheses. Only non-immigrants and inhabitants of US overseas territories are included. The marginal effect of the widow dummy reflects the higher
probability of age heaping in the case of widows, when evaluated for an average individual. For the US in 1880, we used a randomly drawn sample (size 25%).
311

Economic History Review, 65, 1 (2012)

312 FÖLDVÁRI, VAN LEEUWEN, AND VAN LEEUWEN-LI

hand, if the lower level of age heaping is caused by women adjusting their age to
match that of a spouse, we would expect widows to revert to heaping on -0 and -5
again after their husbands passed away. We find that age heaping of widows, even
after correction for the age structure and selection effects, does not significantly
differ from that of unmarried women.
Unfortunately, the third possibility—that women (and to a lesser extent men)
adapt their ages to that of their husband (wife)—cannot be tested directly given the
dual distribution (an age distribution of both men and women). However, after
analysing the other two arguments, we concluded that the age adaptation by
married women to that of their husband may have been a factor in the unexpect-
edly low overall level of age heaping among women. This implies that, in order to
calculate actual age heaping among women reliably, it is preferable to use data on
non-married women.

*University of Debrecen, Utrecht University

**Free University, Utrecht University, University of Warwick

Date submitted 24 July 2009

Revised version submitted 27 July 2010
Accepted 14 September 2010

DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00582.x

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