Social Trends

The United Kingdom will conduct a traditional census next year, but it may be the last of its kind, according to the British Cabinet minister in charge of the count. Francis Maude told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that there are ways to “provide better, quickerinformation, more frequently and cheaper.” Britain has conducted a census each […]

The head of Statistics Canada has resigned over the government’s decision to drop the mandatory long form in the 2011 Census, stating that the voluntary survey that will be instituted in its place is not an adequate substitute. The resignation statement by Munir A. Sheikh declined to explain what advice he and his agency gave […]

As the 2010 Census information-gathering phase winds down and the Census Bureau turns to quality-checking and data-processing, Director Robert Groves offered some statistics at a recent operational briefing to assess how the national count has gone thus far.

What would happen if Americans were not required by law to respond to census surveys?

Statistics Canada has announced that the nation’s 2011 Census will include the same eight basic questions that were asked of everyone in the 2006 count, and that the mandatory long form will be replaced with a voluntary survey. The census long form went to one-in-five households and had been part of the national census for […]

In a posting on his blog, Census Bureau Director Robert Groves says that census-takers are nearly done with knocking on doors of households from which 2010 Census forms were not received.