A Census of a nation’s people and housing provides statistics about its health, income and social structures at a local level. While the demand for these statistics is unchanged the way they are collected is changing in many nations because of common drivers: cost pressure, web-based collection, decreasing response rates, environmental shocks and the availability of administrative data. Within this context, this paper gives an overview of the evolution of the Census in Israel, Italy, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom and thereby provides an insight of the challenges and solutions of the modern Census.
The component method of population estimation relies on census counts, vital statistics, and internal and international migration. In Israel, all individuals' events are registered. To apply the component method, individuals' records from the census and the administrative data are aggregated to give population estimates. However, this method disconnects individual from aggregated characteristics, and differences appear in individual characteristics between census and administrative data. The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics conducted individual follow-ups. The pros and cons of each method are presented. On average, individual estimates on statistical areas are larger than aggregate estimates, and the differences are stable after several years. The individual estimates are preferable under at least four situations: in conducting a registry of emigrants; in conducting a census of institutions; where administrative files are available; and where census method is suitable to this method.
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