Steps taken to address census under coverage – Clarke
Published:Tuesday | March 12, 2024 | 5:14 PM
Minister of Finance Dr Nigel Clarke has acknowledged the under coverage of Jamaicans in the 2022 Population and Housing Census, indicating that steps have been taken to use new United Nations methodological guidelines to address this.
Clarke, who opened the 2024/25 Budget Debate in the House Tuesday afternoon, said the method used for this census marked a significant departure from traditional methods as, for the first time, data was collected using tablet computers.
He said monitoring the census, recruitment, and human resource management were also intended to be digitally enabled.
However, the Statistical Institute (STATIN) experienced resignations and retirements of key personnel at its head office and challenges in recruiting suitable candidates for Information Technology and Human Resource posts.
Clarke said that this was further compounded by the tight labour market in which the census was executed.
He said the two areas had a cascading effect on the operations of the census, including delays in recruitment, training, and payment at the start of data collection.
He said STATIN made adjustments but the negative publicity of the initial challenges, along with the impact of the payment delays had a significant impact on the progress of data collection.
Additionally, Clarke said that there were heightened concerns about privacy, security, and the proliferation of gated communities.
Access to gated communities was a significant problem.
He said respondents in affluent communities were not very cooperative with census takers and supervisors.
Clarke said the COVID-19 pandemic also adversely impacted the planning phase of the census, as several adjustments had to be made in response. This included the implementation of virtual training among others, he said.
He said globally, the 2020 round of censuses has been challenging, and that several countries across Latin America and the Caribbean also faced similar challenges.
“This led to a coordinated response from the global statistical community led by the United Nations Statistics Division, which implemented several strategies in response to the issues faced during the 2020 round of censuses,” he said.
Clarke said this includes new methodological guidelines for assessing under coverage, enhanced technical support for small area estimation, and several workshops on assessing data quality.
STATIN participated in several of these initiatives at the global and regional levels, Clarke said and has hosted one technical assistance mission on the census.
He said several steps are being taken to assess the extent of the under coverage, and appropriate action will be taken to address the issues encountered using statistically sound techniques, guided by United Nations Statistics Division standards.
He said that this will stand up to scrutiny.
- Kimone Francis
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