Social and demographic statistics

1
Social and demographic statistics some issues

9.1

• Jan Byfuglien
• Statistics Norway

2
Introduction

• Major challenges in the area of social
  statistics, also for external assessments/reviews
  are
• International guidelines have not been very
  complete and precise
• There are national traditions and specificities
  that make harmonisation difficult
• Profound knowledge of international guidelines
  and regulations and honest self-assessment is
  important
• A major outcome might be documentation of current
  practices as a basis recommendations for
  improvement actions

3
A source for EU legislation in statistics
4
A source for methodological information
5
Demographic statistics

• Importance and usage
• High quality population figures are essential for
  administration and planning. Especially
  monitoring of migration is important, also for
  political reasons
• Data sources
• Administrative sources, censuses, sample surveys
  or a combination
• Issues to be addressed
• Cooperation with other partners completeness,
  consistency
• Implementation of international definitions de
  jure/de facto, birth related definitions, causes
  of mortality, international migration
• However not mix population register as an
  administrative register for administrative usage
  and statistical register

6
Demography and population census international
recommendations and requirements

• Joint UNECE/Eurostat Recommendations for the
  2010 Censuses of Population and Housing (on
  UNECE website)
• Council of Europe, UNSD and Eurostat Agreement
  Eurostat four demographic collections per year
  Rapid, Joint, Nowcast and Regional.
  Covers also some CIS countries.
• Principles and recommendations for a vital
  statistics systems. UN 2001
• Handbook on training in civil registration and
  vital statistics systems. UN 2002

7
Migration and asylum statistics

• UN Recommendations on statistics of international
  migration
• EU Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Community
  statistics on migration and international
  protection
• Agreements at European level
• Eurasil Network of Asylum practitioners
• CIREFI Agreement on topics related to illegal
  immigration

8
Some important definitions (EU regulation)

• usual residence
• means the place at which a person normally spends
  the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary
  absences for purposes of recreation, holiday,
  visits to friends and relatives, business,
  medical treatment or religious pilgrimage or, in
  default, the place of legal or registered
  residence
• immigration
• means the action by which a person establishes
  his or her usual residence in the territory of a
  Member State for a period that is, or is expected
  to be, of at least 12 months, having previously
  been usually resident in another Member State or
  a third country
• emigration
• means the action by which a person, having
  previously been usually resident in the territory
  of a Member State, ceases to have his or her
  usual residence in that Member State for a period
  that is, or is expected to be, of at least 12
  months

9
Reasons for non-compliance with international
standards in the field of population and migration

• Practises for the registration of persons with
  different legal status, for instance
• Allow persons to be considered as resident in the
  country even if living abroad for more than 12
  months
• The different durations used for determining
  place of residence, for instance
• Register persons as residents even with short
  term stay

10
Different population definitions
Legally resident population
Long-term emigrants?
Short-term Immigrants?
Visitors
Resident population
Present population
Irregular immigrants
Improving statistics on international
migration some priorities. ECE/CES/2008/42
11
The benefits of a national population
registration system

• A national system for population registration can
  serve a number of administrative and planning
  tasks and improve the quality of the regular
  demographic statistics
• Combined with the development of administrative
  registers in other social areas this may improve
  the overall socio-statistical system and replace
  the censuses
• This development requires
• Proper legislation also outside the field of
  statistical legislation
• New authorities responsible for administrative
  registers?
• A system of unique identification of persons
• Good cooperation between NSIs and administrative
  authorities

12
The Norwegian example Three base registers with
a common identifier address
Businesses
The common identifier address
People
Properties Addresses Buildings
13
The relationship between administrative and
statistical registers
Three base registers in the Norwegian information society Equivalents in Statistics Norway (SN)
The Central Population Register (CPR) The Statistical Population Register (SPR)
The Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities (CCRLE) Central Register for Establishments and Enterprises (CRE)
The Ground Parcel, Address and Building Register (GAB) Register of Ground Parcels, Addresses, Buildings and Dwellings (SN-GAB)

• Are widely used for administrative purposes but
  not via SN!
• Statistics Norway has full access to microdata
  from these registers
• Statistics Norway (SN) uses these registers to
  define, identify and update basic statistical
  units and related variables

14
The benefits of a register based census
Labour market
Social security
GAB
Income
Persons Registers
Education
CPR
Families and households Registers and forms
Families Couples
House- holds

Persons
Dwellings
Housing and dwellings Census forms
Housing Census Traditional
Combined method in 2001 12 500 000 Registers
only for 2011 1 250 000 (estimate)
15
Social surveys

• Surveys describing for instance
• Household budgets
• Income distribution and living conditions
• Labour market situation
• Data source often sample surveys
• Usage high level of public and political usage
  and interest
• Thus there are some risks
• Distrust in quality, biased dissemination and
  misrepresentation

16
International guidelines/recommendations

• Household budget surveys
• EU methodological recommendations
• Income and living conditions
• UN Handbook on Poverty Statistics Concepts,
  Methods and Policy Use (provisional version)
• EU Regulation on income and living conditions
  (EU-SILC)
• Labour market statistics
• ILO Conventions, recommendations, resolutions and
  guidelines
• EU Regulation on the organisation of labour force
  sample surveys

17
Focus of review quality of data collection and
dissemination

• How updated is the sample frame? Population
  register?
• The representativity and coverage of the sample?
• Professionalism in the formulation of
  questionnaires pretesting of forms
• The quality of the interview organisation proper
  training and follow up?
• Consistency with international guidelines?
• Independence in design of survey and
  dissemination of results?

18
Other areas of social statistics

• Education, health, culture, crime
• Data source often administrative data collected
  by other authorities
• International guidelines UN, UNESCO, WHO and to
  an increasing degree, Eurostat
• Issues
• Division of labour/cooperation between NSIs and
  other producers
• Relationship between administrative and
  statistical usage
• Consistency in relation to international
  guidelines

19
To conclude Assessment in the field of social
and demographic statistics can be quite
demanding

• Lack of clear international guidelines in some
  areas
• National specificities can make harmonization
  difficult
• Most areas are quite important for the public and
  for policy makers and thus requires professional
  handling of data collection and dissemination
• Often several actors producing administrative
  data and -sometimes statistics which requires
  good coordination
• Major outcome actions to improve quality, trust
  and coordination?