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A census (from Latin censere, 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given population, usually displayed in the form of statistics. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses include censuses of agriculture, traditional culture, business, supplies, and traffic censuses. The United Nations (UN) defines the essential features of population and housing censuses as "individual enumeration, universality within a defined territory, simultaneity and defined periodicity", and recommends that population censuses be taken at least every ten years. UN recommendations also cover census topics to be collected, official definitions, classifications, and other useful information to coordinate international practices.United Nations (2008). Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses . Statistical Papers: Series M No. 67/Rev. 2. p. 8. .
The United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in turn, defines the census of agriculture as "a statistical operation for collecting, processing and disseminating data on the structure of agriculture, covering the whole or a significant part of a country." "In a census of agriculture, data are collected at the holding level." Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO (CC BY 3.0 IGO) license.
The word is of Latin origin: during the Roman Republic, the census was a list of all adult males fit for military service. The modern census is essential to international comparisons of any type of statistics, and censuses collect data on many attributes of a population, not just the number of individuals. Censuses typically began as the only method of collecting national Demography data and are now part of a larger system of different surveys. Although population estimates remain an important function of a census, including exactly the geographic distribution of the population or the agricultural population, statistics can be produced about combinations of attributes, e.g., education by age and sex in different regions. Current administrative data systems allow for other approaches to enumeration with the same level of detail but raise concerns about privacy and the possibility of biasing estimates.
A census can be contrasted with sampling in which information is obtained only from a subset of a population; typically, main population estimates are updated by such intercensal estimates. Modern census data are commonly used for research, business marketing, and planning, and as a baseline for designing sample surveys by providing a sampling frame such as an address register. Census counts are necessary to adjust samples to be representative of a population by weighting them as is common in . Similarly, stratification requires knowledge of the relative sizes of different population strata, which can be derived from census enumerations. In some countries, the census provides the official counts used to apportion the number of elected representatives to regions (sometimes controversially – e.g., Utah v. Evans). In many cases, a carefully chosen random sample can provide more accurate information than attempts to get a population census.Salant, Priscilla, and Don A. Dillman. "How to Conduct your Survey: Leading professional give you proven techniques for getting reliable results." (1995)
In modern Iran, the first nationwide population and housing census was conducted in 1956 (1335 in the Iranian calendar), with the most recent one completed in 2016 (1395). According to Article 4 of the Iranian Statistical Center Law, this nationwide census is to be carried out every five years by order of the president.
The first national census of France (L'État des paroisses et des feux) was undertaken in 1328, mostly for fiscal purposes. It estimated the French population at 16 to 17 million.
The sampling frame used by a census is almost always an address register. Thus, it is not known if there are any residents or how many people there are in each household. Depending on the mode of enumeration, a form is sent to the householder, an enumerator calls, or administrative records for the dwelling are accessed. As a preliminary to the dispatch of forms, census workers will check for any address problems on the ground. While it may seem straightforward to use the postal service file for this purpose, this can be out of date and some dwellings may contain several independent households. A particular problem is what is termed "communal establishments", a category that includes student residences, religious orders, homes for the elderly, people in prisons, etc. As these are not easily enumerated by a single householder, they are often treated differently and visited by special teams of census workers to ensure they are classified appropriately.
A precise definition of residence is needed, to decide whether visitors to a country should be included in the population count. This is becoming more important as students travel abroad for education for a period of several years. Other groups causing problems with enumeration are newborn babies, refugees, people away on holiday, people moving home around census day, and people without a fixed address.
People with second homes, because they are working in another part of the country or have a holiday cottage, are difficult to fix at a particular address; this sometimes causes double counting or houses being mistakenly identified as vacant. Another problem is where people use a different address at different times e.g. students living at their place of education in term time but returning to a family home during vacations, or children whose parents have separated who effectively have two family homes. Census enumeration has always been based on finding people where they live, as there is no systematic alternative: any list used to find people is likely to be derived from census activities in the first place. Recent United Nations guidelines provide recommendations on enumerating such complex households.
In the census of agriculture, data is collected at the agricultural holding unit. An agricultural holding is an economic unit of agricultural production under single management comprising all livestock kept and all land used wholly or partly for agricultural production purposes, without regard to title, legal form, or size. Single management may be exercised by an individual or household, jointly by two or more individuals or households, by a clan or tribe, or by a juridical person such as a corporation, cooperative, or government agency. The holding's land may consist of one or more parcels, located in one or more separate areas or one or more territorial or administrative divisions, providing the parcels share the same production means, such as labor, farm buildings, Machine or draught animals.
Many countries use a post-enumeration survey to adjust the raw census counts.World Population and Housing Census Programme (2010) Post Enumeration Surveys: Operational guidelines , United Nations Secretariat, Dept of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistics Division, Tech Report This works similarly to capture-recapture estimation for animal populations. Among census experts, this method is called dual system enumeration (DSE). A sample of households is visited by interviewers who record the details of the household as of census day. These data are then matched to census records, and the number of people missed can be estimated by considering the number of people who are included in one count but not the other. This allows adjustments to the count for non-response, varying between different demographic groups. An explanation using a fishing analogy can be found in "Trout, Catfish and Roach..."Benton, P. Trout, Catfish and Roach: The beginner's guide to census population estimates , Office for National Statistics, UK which won an award from the Royal Statistical Society for excellence in official statistics in 2011.
Triple system enumeration has been proposed as an improvement as it would allow evaluation of the statistical dependence of pairs of sources. However, as the matching process is the most difficult aspect of census estimation this has never been implemented for a national enumeration. It would also be difficult to identify three different sources that were sufficiently different to make the triple system effort worthwhile. The DSE approach has another weakness in that it assumes there is no person counted twice (over count). In de facto residence definitions this would not be a problem but in de jure definitions individuals risk being recorded on more than one form leading to double counting. A particular problem here is students who often have a term time and family address.
Several countries have used a system known as short form/long form. Other methods of census taking , Office for National Statistics, UK This is a sampling strategy that randomly chooses a proportion of people to send a more detailed questionnaire to (the long form). Everyone receives the short-form questions. This means more data are collected, but without imposing a burden on the whole population. This also reduces the burden on the statistical office. Indeed, in the UK until 2001 all residents were required to fill in the whole form but only a 10% sample was coded and analysed in detail. New technology means that all data are now scanned and processed. During the 2011 Canadian census there was controversy about the cessation of the mandatory long-form census; the head of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, resigned upon the federal government's decision to do so.
The use of alternative enumeration strategies is increasing but these are not as simple as many people assume and are only used in developed countries. The Netherlands has been most advanced in adopting a census using administrative data. This allows a simulated census to be conducted by linking several different administrative databases at an agreed time. Data can be matched, and an overall enumeration established allowing for discrepancies between different data sources. A validation survey is still conducted in a similar way to the post-enumeration survey employed in a traditional census.
Other countries that have a population register use this as a basis for all the census statistics needed by users. This is most common among Nordic countries but requires many distinct registers to be combined, including population, housing, employment, and education. These registers are then combined and brought up to the standard of a statistical register by comparing the data from different sources and ensuring the quality is sufficient for official statistics to be produced.
A recent innovation is the French instigation of a rolling census program with different regions enumerated each year so that the whole country is completely enumerated every 5 to 10 years. In Europe, in connection with the 2010 census round, many countries adopted alternative census methodol\\ogies, often based on the combination of data from registers, surveys and other sources.
There are sometimes problems in introducing new technology. The US census had been intended to use handheld computers, but cost escalated, and this was abandoned, with the contract being sold to Brazil. The online response has some advantages, but one of the functions of the census is to make sure everyone is counted accurately. A system that allowed people to enter their address without verification would be open to abuse. Therefore, households have to be verified on the ground, typically by an enumerator visit or post out. Paper forms are still necessary for those without access to the internet. It is also possible that the hidden nature of an administrative census means that users are not engaged with the importance of contributing their data to official statistics.
Alternatively, population estimations may be carried out remotely with geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing technologies.
"The unique advantage of the census is that it represents the entire statistical universe, down to the smallest geographical units, of a country or region. Planners need this information for all kinds of development work, including: assessing demographic trends; analysing socio-economic conditions; designing evidence-based poverty-reduction strategies; monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of policies; and tracking progress toward national and internationally agreed development goals."
In addition to making policymakers aware of population issues, the census is also an important tool for identifying forms of social, demographic or economic exclusions, such as inequalities relating to race, ethics, and religion as well as disadvantaged groups such as those with disabilities and the poor.
An accurate census can empower local communities by providing them with the necessary information to participate in local decision-making and ensuring they are represented.
The importance of the census of agriculture for development is that it gives a snapshot of the structure of the agricultural sector in a country and, when compared with previous censuses, provides an opportunity to identify trends and structural transformations of the sector, and points towards areas for policy intervention. Census data are used as a benchmark for current statistics and their value is increased when they are employed together with other data sources.
By the beginning of the 20th century, censuses were recording households and some indications of their employment. In some countries, census archives are released for public examination after many decades, allowing genealogists to track the ancestry of interested people. Archives provide a substantial historical record which may challenge established views. Information such as job titles and arrangements for the destitute and sick may also shed light on the historical structure of society.
Political considerations influence the census in many countries. In Canada in 2010 for example, the government under the leadership of Stephen Harper abolished the mandatory long-form census. This abolition was a response to protests from some Canadians who resented the personal questions. The long-form census was reinstated by the Justin Trudeau government in 2016.
Nowadays, census data are published in a wide variety of formats to be accessible to business, all levels of government, media, students and teachers, charities, and any citizen who is interested; researchers in particular have an interest in the role of Census Field Officers (CFO) and their assistants. Data can be represented visually or analysed in complex statistical models, to show the difference between certain areas, or to understand the association between different personal characteristics. Census data offer a unique insight into small areas and small demographic groups which sample data would be unable to capture with precision.
In the census of agriculture, users need census data to:
For instance, when reporting data from a large city, it might be appropriate to give the average income for black males aged between 50 and 60. However, doing this for a town that only has two black males in this age group would be a breach of privacy because either of those persons, knowing his own income and the reported average, could determine the other man's income.
Typically, census data are processed to obscure such individual information. Some agencies do this by intentionally introducing small statistical errors to prevent the identification of individuals in marginal populations; others swap variables for similar respondents. Whatever is done to reduce the privacy risk, new improved electronic analysis of data can threaten to reveal sensitive individual information. This is known as statistical disclosure control.
Another possibility is to present survey results by means of statistical models in the form of a multivariate distribution mixture. The statistical information in the form of conditional distributions () can be derived interactively from the estimated mixture model without any further access to the original database. As the final product does not contain any protected microdata, the model-based interactive software can be distributed without any confidentiality concerns.
Another method is simply to release no data at all, except very large scale data directly to the central government. Differing release strategies of governments have led to an international project (IPUMS) to co-ordinate access to microdata and corresponding metadata. Such projects such as SDMX also promote standardising metadata, so that best use can be made of the minimal data available.
In 1931, Walter Willcox published a table in his book, International Migrations: Volume II Interpretations, that estimated the 1929 world population to be roughly 1.8 billion.
The pandemic has also affected the planning and implementation of censuses of agriculture in all world regions. The extent of the impact has varied according to the stages at which the censuses are, ranging from planning (i.e. staffing, procurement, preparation of frames, questionnaires), fieldwork (field training and enumeration) or data processing/analysis stages. The census of agriculture's reference period is the agricultural year. Thus, a delay in any census activity may be critical and can result in a full year postponement of the enumeration if the agricultural season is missed. Some publications have discussed the impact of COVID-19 on national censuses of agriculture.
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