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Different calendar [message #11126] Tue, 01 November 2016 07:17 Go to next message
lillo?S is currently offline  lillo?S
Messages: 24
Registered: December 2015
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I realised that Ethiopia and Nepal have a different calendar and the dates variables follow that calendar and not the Gregorian. I was wondering if you could tell me which other countries have a calendar different from the Gregorian in the DHS.
Re: Different calendar [message #11162 is a reply to message #11126] Fri, 11 November 2016 10:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Trevor-DHS is currently offline  Trevor-DHS
Messages: 787
Registered: January 2013
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Just Ethiopia and Nepal. All others use the Western calendar for the dates in the datasets.
Re: Different calendar [message #13620 is a reply to message #11162] Fri, 01 December 2017 18:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Trevor-DHS is currently offline  Trevor-DHS
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Registered: January 2013
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I have to amend this comment now as Afghanistan also uses a local calendar and not the Western calendar.
Re: Different calendar [message #14465 is a reply to message #13620] Tue, 10 April 2018 10:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
cportner is currently offline  cportner
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Registered: September 2014
Location: Seattle
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I am wondering why the dates are not changed as part of the recode? Maybe I am looking at this the wrong way, but I thought that the idea was to make the data as comparable as possible, and having all the dates in the same format would help. What is especially confusing is that all the CMC dates are based on the local calendar and not the Gregorian. The recode manual says that those are based on the number of months since the start of the century, and then only shows Gregorian examples.

[Updated on: Tue, 10 April 2018 10:53]

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Re: Different calendar [message #14473 is a reply to message #14465] Tue, 10 April 2018 17:20 Go to previous message
Trevor-DHS is currently offline  Trevor-DHS
Messages: 787
Registered: January 2013
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Dates recorded in the surveys are generally kept in the calendar used to collect the survey. The CMC system was originally developed just to facilitate calculations relative to other dates in the same survey (e.g. relative to date of interview or date of birth of the respondent), there was no need to adjust dates to the Gregorian calendar. additionally, as dates are generally recorded with just month and year (except dates of birth of children in more recent surveys) and the local calendars do not start at the beginning of particular months in the Gregorian calendar it was not possible to convert dates exactly to the Gregorian calendar. It is possible to approximate the CMCs for the Gregorian calendar by adding or subtracting (depending on the survey) a fixed number of months.
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