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I am having a lot of trouble finding a method to calculate population census data which is clumped into groups, for example: There are 280 people within the 0-4 years old age range, 258 within the 5-9 age range and so on. How would I calculate this across a range of variables?

Angela Faro Lina
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    I strongly suggest you bounce this question over to Cross Validated, StackOverflow's statistical cousin. http://stats.stackexchange.com/ StackOverflow is more for programming the calculation, not coming up with it. – Pete Garafano Apr 25 '13 at 14:14
  • You don't provide enough information, but if you're calculating the average age of the population, you can put the 280 people within the 0-4 age range at 2 (the average of 0-4) and you can put the 258 people within the 5-9 age range at 7 (the average of 5-9). – Gilbert Le Blanc Apr 25 '13 at 14:34
  • Strictly speaking: When there are only groups is it NOT possible to compute a meaningful mean - because it is unknown which exact age values where used. But if need be you could use @Gilbert Le Blanc Method. It will produce a value - but it might be a gross missleading value. – Christian Sauer Apr 25 '13 at 14:40

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If you want an approximate average age of the population, you can put the 280 people within the 0-4 age range at 2 (the average of 0-4) and you can put the 258 people within the 5-9 age range at 7 (the average of 5-9).

If you want an exact range, you first calculate the minimum average, then you calculate the maximum average.

The minimum average is calculated by putting the 280 people within the 0-4 age range at 0 and the 258 people within the 5-9 age range at 5, and so on.

The maximum average is calculated by putting the 280 people within the 0-4 age range at 4 and the 258 people within the 5-9 age range at 9, and so on.

Once you've calculated the minimum and maximum average, you can say, "The average age of the US population is between minimum and maximum." This is the best you can do with age ranges and be accurate.

Gilbert Le Blanc
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