Age misreporting: An empirical investigation using the New Zealand contingents in the Second Boer War

Abstract

This is a first focused examination of age misreporting in military recruitment. We take advantage of an original dataset comprised of New Zealand military personnel records in the Second Boer War matched with birth historical records. First, we find that age misrepresentation is common: about one third of soldiers on our dataset misreport their ages. Second, we find that soldiers the estimated age-specific mean heights do not change significantly when we change from using reported ages to using true ages. Researchers can prioritise the investigation of true ages on those reporting to be 21 or younger.