The Brazilian population
is rapidly aging. As a result, the number of centenarians has grown steadily,
about 77 per cent between 1991 and 2000.
Although expected, the increasing
number of centenarians may be exaggerated by data quality issues.
We compare the recorded
centenarian population in the 1991 census with indirect estimates based on the
extinct generation method. We find three times more people in the census than
according to the indirect estimates.
Uncertainty about the true
size of old-age populations has important implications in data-deficient countries,
particularly in the estimation of adult mortality.
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