Whipple's index, invented by American demographer George Chandler Whipple (1866–1924), is a method to measure the tendency for individuals to inaccurately report their actual age or date of birth. Respondents to a census or other survey sometimes report their age or date of birth as a round number, or to be more culturally favorable, for example, so that they appear younger or to have been born on a date considered luckier than their actual date of birth.