Rationale for Recoding
The individual data are transformed into a standardized recode dataset for several reasons:
- First, dates for several key events are imputed as much analysis of the data is based on these events
and their dates are often incomplete or missing. The imputed dates are included in the data file to
allow analysts to produce results consistent with those published by DHS and to save analysts the
time and trouble of creating their own imputation schemes.

Coding Standards
Special codes are used throughout the data file for certain responses. The general coding scheme is presented
below. The codes given apply to 4 digit, 3 digit, 2 digit and 1 digit variables, respectively. If there are other
special responses to questions, these are coded in decreasing order from these special codes, i.e., 9996, 996,
96, 6; 9995, 995, 95, 5; etc.
BLANK Variable is not applicable for this respondent either because the question was not
asked in a particular country or because the question was not asked of this
respondent due to the flow or skip pattern of the questionnaire.
9999, 999, 99, 9 This question should have been answered by the respondent, but the questionnaire
contained no information for this variable (missing data).
9998, 998, 98, 8 The respondent replied "Don't know" to this question.
9997, 997, 97, 7 The answer to this question was inconsistent with other responses in the
questionnaire and it was thought that this response was probably in error. The
response was changed to this code to avoid further problems due to inconsistency of
information. This usually takes place during the secondary editing stage of data
processing.