Age misreporting is a common phenomenon in Demographic and Health Surveys, and there are numerous reasons for this. The trend and pattern of disparity in age heaping vary between countries. The present study assesses age heaping in the selected South Asian countries of Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan using data from the most recent round of the Demographic and Health Survey. The respondent sample sizes were 203,703 for Afghanistan, 2,869,043 for India, 49,064 for Nepal, 81,618 for Bangladesh and 100,868 for Pakistan. Age heaping was assessed by respondent’s age, education level, sex and level of education. Whipple’s index was calculated to assess systematic heaping on certain ages as a result of digit preference. Bangladesh, Afghanistan and India showed stronger preference for ages ending with the digits ‘0’ and ‘5’ compared with Pakistan and Nepal among uneducated respondents. On the other hand, strong avoidance of ages ending in the digits ‘1’, ‘4’ and ‘9’ was observed in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and India. However, urban–rural place of residence was not found to be associated with digit preference in the study countries. Among males, age misreporting with the final digits ‘0’ and ‘5’ was highest in Bangladesh, followed by Afghanistan and India, and Nepal showed the least displacement. Strong digit preference and avoidance, and upper age displacement, were witnessed in the surveys conducted in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and India on the parameters of sex and education level. Innovative methods of data collection with the measurement and minimization of errors using statistical techniques should be used to ensure accuracy of age data.

年龄误报是人口和健康调查中的常见现象，其原因有很多。不同国家之间年龄堆积差异的趋势和模式各不相同。本研究使用最近一轮人口与健康调查的数据评估了阿富汗、印度、尼泊尔、孟加拉国和巴基斯坦等选定的南亚国家的年龄堆积情况。受访者样本量为阿富汗 203,703、印度 2,869,043、尼泊尔 49,064、孟加拉国 81,618 和巴基斯坦 100,868。年龄堆积是通过受访者的年龄、教育程度、性别和教育程度来评估的。计算 Whipple 指数是为了评估由于数字偏好而导致的某些年龄段的系统性堆积。孟加拉国，在未受过教育的受访者中，与巴基斯坦和尼泊尔相比，阿富汗和印度对以数字“0”和“5”结尾的年龄表现出更强的偏好。另一方面，在孟加拉国、阿富汗和印度观察到强烈避免以数字“1”、“4”和“9”结尾的年龄。然而，在研究国家，未发现城乡居住地与数字偏好相关。在男性中，最后数字为“0”和“5”的误报年龄在孟加拉国最高，其次是阿富汗和印度，尼泊尔的流离失所最少。在孟加拉国、阿富汗和印度进行的关于性别和教育水平参数的调查中，我们看到了强烈的数字偏好和回避以及高龄移位。