Editorial | Next census soon

The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) has become more aggressive, or at least specific, in its timetable for completing the long-delayed national census.

According to the government’s Jamaica Information Service (JIS), the data on the national headcount, or something approximate to one, will be published by the end of September. Previously, the agency had been less specific, saying only that the census would be published before the completion of the current fiscal year, which could have taken it up to next March.

“We are currently in our final stages of data validation,” STATIN’s Acting Director General Leesha Delatie-Budair reported last week.

That Jamaicans will have the census data in less than six months is good news. A specific, and physical, headcount of all the citizens and households of a country will unquestionably produce more accurate population data than any other methodology that statisticians and demographers are likely to employ. Importantly, periodic censuses provide baseline data upon which these analysts can build, and test, future assumptions.

Moreover, accurate population data is important to governments in their formulation of policy. If they get the numbers wrong, or do not get them at all, there is a good chance that policies will go askew. Hence this newspaper’s welcome of the promised ‘early’ delivery of the census numbers. Which is what Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus understood in the time of Jesus when he ordered a headcount in the provinces, causing Joseph and Mary to return from Nazareth to Bethlehem, leading to Jesus’ birth in a manger. That census, more than 2000 years ago, was seemingly efficiently executed.

INSUFFICIENT DATA GATHERERS

But while The Gleaner celebrates this development, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that this is the 2021 census, and time enough for STATIN to have learnt lessons from the process. Or is it 2022? Or 2023? Or perhaps 2024?

To be fair, 2021 should probably be eliminated. Censuses are usually decennial affairs – done every 10 years. Jamaica’s previous one was in 2011. Its fieldwork was completed in four months.

All things being equal, the next census should have been in 2021, but was postponed until 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Which should have meant more time for internal planning.

The census was actually launched in September 2022, with fieldwork expected to be completed by the end of that year, or early in 2023. Analysis and data verification might have taken another year or so. The fieldwork, however, was never completed.

The exercise, apparently, was dogged from the start by insufficient numbers of data gatherers. And those who were employed complained of being paid too little. When the compensation was increased, there were still grumblings over its size and the hoops through which field staff had to jump to verify that they had done the work. There were claims, too, of other tensions between staff and supervisors.

To put it mildly, this census, from a management standpoint, has been one hot mess.

CRITICAL GAPS

The good thing is that from a technical standpoint, the people at STATIN are experienced and qualified data gatherers. The institution and its predecessor have conducted censuses in the past. So, while the census that Ms Delatie-Budair and her team will deliver will lack some data, they have used statistical and other analytic techniques to compensate for some of the gaps. Similar approaches were employed by other countries whose censuses were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, even if what is produced by STATIN is of the highest quality, it is not outside the realm of logic that there will be critical gaps in the data that policymakers would prefer to have filled. It would make sense, therefore, that the Government and STATIN prepare for a new census, well ahead of the 10 years it would take for another one to be taken. In other words, Jamaica would be starting a new decennial interval for its censuses.

In the meantime, STATIN and its supporting government agencies would work on their internal management competencies and efficiencies to ensure that the issues that plagued this census-taking do not recur. The agency should also plan for the leveraging of existing and emerging digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, to support the exercise and help make it more efficient.