Census taking, vital registration, and how the data is collected

Overview

National census, vital registration and difference between a de facto and a de jure count.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is a national census?

   Model answer

   A census is an official count and survey of everyone living in a country at a given moment, carried out by the government. It counts how many people there are and describes them: age, sex, household composition, housing, occupation, education, ethnicity, language, health and migration. It is a periodic snapshot, usually taken every ten years, and in most countries completion is required by law.

2. 2

   What is vital registration?

   Model answer

   Vital registration is the continuous, legally required recording of vital events as they happen — births, deaths and marriages, and usually stillbirths and divorces as well. Each event is entered in a civil register, normally within a set number of days of occurring, so the record accumulates permanently and without a break rather than being gathered at fixed intervals.

3. 3

   Distinguish between national census taking and vital registration.

   Model answer

   A census is a periodic snapshot of the stock of population: it counts how many people there are on one particular night and describes what they are like. Vital registration is a continuous record of the flow of events: every birth, death and marriage as it occurs. The census gives the size and structure of the population at a moment; vital registration shows how that population is changing in the years between censuses. Both are run by government and both are compulsory, but one is intermittent and detailed while the other never stops and records only events.

4. 4

   Explain why both sources are needed before a rate such as the crude death rate can be worked out.

   Model answer

   Any rate needs a numerator and a denominator. Vital registration supplies the numerator — the number of deaths registered during the year. The census supplies the denominator — the total population those deaths came from. Neither source can produce the rate on its own, which is why a country with a good census but weak registration, or the reverse, cannot measure its own population change accurately.

5. 5

   What information does a census collect that vital registration never will?

   Model answer

   The census collects the characteristics of the living population: age and sex structure, household size and composition, housing type and quality, occupation and employment, qualifications, ethnicity, language, religion, internal migration and self-reported health. Vital registration records only the events themselves and the few details attached to them, such as the date and place, the age at death and the cause of death. So the structure of a population comes from the census, and the change in it comes from registration.

6. 6

   What is the difference between a de facto and a de jure count?

   Model answer

   A de facto count records people where they actually were on census night; a de jure count records them at their usual permanent address. The choice matters for students, seasonal workers, people in hospital, tourists and members of the armed forces overseas, and it can shift the recorded population of a university town or a resort by thousands. Comparisons between two countries are unsafe unless you know which basis each of them used.

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