Is age a discrete or a continuous variable ?
The correct answer and explanation is:
Age is typically considered a continuous variable because it can take any value within a given range. It is measured on a scale that is divisible into infinitely smaller intervals, such as years, months, days, hours, minutes, or even seconds. While age is often represented in whole years when collecting data (e.g., someone may be 30 years old), it can also be represented more precisely as a fraction of a year (e.g., 30.5 years old) or as a more specific unit of time like months or days.
The key characteristic of a continuous variable is its ability to assume an infinite number of values within a given range. This means that age is not limited to specific set values, and it can be expressed in decimal form, allowing for more precise measurement. For instance, if you are calculating the age of a person in months, the value can be represented as 365.5 days or 12.1 months, indicating the flexibility of this variable to take on any real number.
However, in many real-life data collections, age is often rounded to whole numbers, which can give it the appearance of a discrete variable. But technically, because age can be measured at infinitely smaller scales, it remains continuous.
A discrete variable, on the other hand, would only take specific, distinct values with no intermediate values between them. For example, the number of children a person has is a discrete variable since you can’t have 2.5 children.
Therefore, age, despite being commonly rounded in practice, is inherently continuous due to its capacity for infinitely precise measurement across an uninterrupted scale.