Comments on: Census frequency

By: Manolo

Manolo — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 07:22:00 +0000

The UK and the US have a census every ten years, so should we. Once a decade is perfectly fine.

By: tvb

tvb — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 05:06:09 +0000

I do not know why we need 100% samples. Why not do a major survey every 10 years and a sample every 5 years. The questions seem stupid to me anyway.

By: Camryn

Camryn — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 03:51:08 +0000

A good random sample is more reliable than a census for many things… best to actually get the sample than to go for the lot and fail.

By: BlairM

BlairM — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 02:48:17 +0000

Britain and the US seem to manage just fine with one every ten years, I can’t for the life of me understand why having one every five is such a complete necessity. In fact, I’m not sure why they are necessary at all in the modern age.

By: thor42

thor42 — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 02:00:07 +0000

I agree – a census every ten years would be next to useless.
Every five years is good.
I will definitely do it via the online option if that is offered. That’s definitely the way to go in future.

By: aitkenmike

aitkenmike — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 01:43:17 +0000

kk – It will (I assume) be possible to fill out the census online this year. I was a census deliverer/collector for the aborted attempt in 2011 and it was going to be an option then, and the training emphasised that we should push the online option as much as possible. I filled my own out early (can’t remember if this was a test or if online gave you the option of logging in prior to the actual date) and it worked really well, and was suprisingly well designed and intuitive to use for a first time live site.

By: krazykiwi

krazykiwi — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 23:50:27 +0000

Surely a paper-based, infrequent census is a relic. There must be smarter ways to gather relevant demographic data in the 21st century

By: bringbackdemocracy

bringbackdemocracy — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 23:24:26 +0000

Delay the local body elections by 3 or 4 months and use the new electoral boundary information.

By: Pete George

Pete George — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 23:19:13 +0000

Why not every six years? It could then be done in every second year there is no local body or national election.

Although that would be stuff up if there was an early election.

Or if the electoral cycle is changed to four yearly the census could be every four years as well.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 23:09:20 +0000

I’m not sure that the census is entirely valid – I refuse to answer half the question in it as they are not relevant (or should not be relevant) to Government. I’ve yet to receive any contact from stats about this.