Understanding how census works

The National Letters

THIS is an open letter to the Government and the people of Papua New Guinea to cautiously monitor the preparations and conduct of this year’s national population and housing census undertaken by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
The office, under the National Statistical Services Act 1980 (amended 1981) is mandated to conduct official population censuses and surveys.
Government and public scrutiny are necessary to ensure that this year’s census results are timely, accurate and reliable.
I am a senior statistician with NSO.
This is my 22nd year of serving the Government and the people through this office.
I joined NSO in time for the 2000 national population and housing census as assistant director publicity and media awareness in 1999.
I held the same position in the 2011 census.
With my years of service, I am better positioned to understand the statistical process and procedures in any data collection through censuses and surveys.
In any statistical data collection operations, if any of these processes and procedures are not adhered to, the quality of data is deemed to be substandard.
A national population and housing census is a universal survey and that means when it is conducted in PNG, it covers the entire width and breath of this country.
Every single human being, either baby, child, man or woman, old or young, is listed and counted.
The main objective of this year’s census is to do a complete count of every person in PNG at a point in time and that is on the reference night of Sunday, July 11.
The 2021 census, if successfully conducted and when data is analysed and the reports released, it should indicate the real population size in number, distribution and composition, population characteristics, migration, education and literacy, economic productivity and accessibility to essential social services that people need.
A national population and housing census is more than just a mere head count.
The greatest fear in this round of national population and housing census is that there won’t be any comprehensive household listing, now the name has been changed to structural listing, across the country for this census.
For the coming census, the structural listing will only be carried out in urban areas. The rural areas are totally left out.
What is structural listing?
Structural listing is a prerequisite for the other preparatory phases of the main census.
It is a pre-census exercise. The quality of listing will form the basis for a good population coverage during the main census count.
The main tasks performed during the structural listing exercise are:

  • TO locate every human dwelling (house) in a village/census unit;
  • TO identify every household in a dwelling; and,
  • TO do a total count of every person in a household.

What is a household?
A household is defined as the number of people who live together in a dwelling, cook and eat from the same cooking arrangement.
There are four main reasons for structural listing:

  • TO formulate workloads for field officers during the main census count;
  • TO assist field officers to correctly locate households during the main census count;
  • TO assist census management team/planners to formulate the right cost estimates for logistics such as the quantity of census forms; and,
  • TO serve as a checklist that every person has been counted.

Therefore, without a comprehensive structural listing exercise, there won’t be any baseline data to crosscheck whether there was an under-count or over-count with the final population figure.
PNG is geographically a tough country to run a population census.
It has to cover census units along the border of PNG and Indonesia to the islands of Milne Bay, the atolls on Bougainville and the census units in the remotest locations of the country.
However, in this census, the focus of structural listing has been shifted with undue consideration to the use of satellite imaging to carry out listing in the rural areas.
Only structures of buildings will be captured, whether it is a structure of human dwelling, an aid post, classroom, poultry shed or a factory.
The satellite imaging method will not show whether these structures are inhabited by persons and how many.
Structural listing through satellite imaging will deviate from the real objective, planning and carriage of the census preparations and all efforts will amount to guess work and create uncertainty for the main census enumeration.
By universal census data collection standards, this is procedurally wrong.
Another issue is that the current structural listing frame is based on the 2000 national population census.
There was never a comprehensive structural listing done for the last census in 2011.
NSO adopted the 2000 listing frame.
For 2021 census, NSO will be using a listing frame that is 20-years-old without any proper updates.
A population in any setting is never constant, there is either a growth or a decline through births, deaths and migrations.
The second point to consider is that this census will be conducted close to next year’s national general election, as in 2011 before the 2012 national general election.
The population census will be conducted parallel with the common roll updates across the country, which will be undertaken by the PNG Electoral Commission in preparation for next year’s national general elections.
Many people in urban and rural areas will get confused with the population count and the common roll update.
With this misconception, people can mistakenly take the population census as the common roll update and inflate figures.
A case to consider is Jiwaka.
Jiwaka is a new province that was separated from Western Highlands in 2010.
In the 2011 census, Jiwaka recorded a population growth rate of 5.6 per cent, which is above the rest of the provinces in the country and the national average growth of 3.1 per cent.
Since then, NSO failed to explain why this was so, whether it was through births or migration, which are the two factors that determine population growth.
The third issue to consider is that the Government should consider instigating an audit on the expenditure of the census funds.
Funds were allocated to prepare for this census since 2018.
From 2018 to date, there were at least five persons assuming and acting as the chief executive officers of the National Statistical Office and two census directors.
The funds allocated for the census project are tax payers’ money and the Government and the public have the right to know where and how funds have been expended.
I know some, upon reading this letter, would detest what I have said but if I don’t say it, who will?
The Government and the people should know how this project of national significance is managed and executed.
It would be fair and appropriate if the NSO and the 2021 census management team make a rebuttal and give their side of the story to mine so that the public hear from both sides and form a balanced view of the 2021 census preparations and its anticipated results.
Nothing but the truth will set us all free.

Peter Maime,
Senior Statistician (NSO)