Census Day for England and Wales is due to take place on March 27th 2011. As one would expect, The Census has changed greatly since its inception in 1801. For example, a major change to last year’s questionnaire was the inclusion of a question on religion. This year, several changes are afoot. But what are the changes to the 2011 Census vs. its predecessors?
Online Presence
The census has, it appears, moved with the times laid out by the modern day research industry. For the first time ever there will be an option to complete The Census online. From a respondent perspective this should make The Census less arduous and intimidating – often when an 11 page survey is placed in front of a respondent it is often greeted with a monotone sigh. Online methods should therefore, increase respondents willingness to participate. Additionally the clarity of the data gained via online methods should allow for increased accuracy. An online checking tool to monitor this process will also make research management easier for The ONS.
New Questions
As is seemingly Census tradition, there is additional content to this year’s survey. Further question subjects include; migration details, number of bedrooms owned and number of passports possessed. The benefit of these extra questions is (simply put) that the more the government knows about the nation, the more informed their decisions can be. Resultantly, policy making should become more representative of national needs due to a more encompassing data bank.
Increased Cost
As with any public spending, the finances of The Census have come under scrutiny. Despite the partial use of online data collection methods (which is usually deemed the cheapest method of data collection) the cost of The Census is reported to have doubled, at a rumoured level of £480 million. One has to question why the cost has increased despite seemingly more efficient methods. The answer to this is largely due to the cost of translation required to ensure immigrant’s information is collected. If this is so expensive then why do it you could ask? The goal of The Census is to take a snap shot of the population. What kind of snapshot of the UK in 2011 would ignore non-English speakers? A poor, unrepresentative one – hence the need to include such people and absorb the costs accordingly.
Increased Time
With the addition of the previously highlighted questions, The 2011 Census is 56 questions long and will take a household of 4 nearly 40 minutes to complete. In a society where time is precious, this is a considerable length of time. That said, with 52’59’487.66 minutes passing between Census’s – is 40 minutes too much to ask?
Increased Data Sharing
Census data is not divulged to the public until 100 years after it has been collected. However, under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 Census data can be shared amongst the 27 EU member states and bodies of ‘approved researchers’. This does mean that, hopefully, institutes other than the UK government can benefit from the 2011 Census. However, it has also meant that Census naysayers such as NO2ID and Big Brother Watch have heightened their anti-Census sentiment.
Copyright © 2011 Northstar Research Partners
