Professional Documents
Culture Documents
How
do we study population?
study requires a knowledge of the
presentation, development and manipulation of
data, mostly mathematical and statistical in nature
Correlation and causation
What is data?
Where does the reliable data come from?
How do you access it?
The
Sources of Data
Censuses
Vital
Statistics
Registers
Sample Surveys
Historical records such as church records
Administrative data
Wherever data is recorded in a systematic way
Population
Census
Formal
Census Definition
Process
based
Publication essential
Inclusion of social, economic and enumerative data
Cross-sectional and therefore limited analysis**
All personsproblems with this concept occur in
the realization of this goal and affect reliability
Census
From
Census
the 19th century, the census process came to be
viewed as a tool to measure the numbers of the
population and their vital statistics such as
education, wealth and marital status
Between 1975 and 1984, 89% of the countries had
a census covering 96% of the world population
Problems with the reliability of the census mostly
are political and ideological
In
US Census
Constitutional
mandate
10
years
everyone (complete enumeration)
No sampling
Questions reflect the social issues of the time
Example race and ethnicitymulti-racial peoples
Contains a short form and a long form
count
Who is included?
Everyone
is the mandate
Process not that easy
De facto populationeveryone at a particular
place at a particular time
De jure population people who legally reside in
the census area
Balancing of those persons
Who is counted?
Residents in the census tract
Usual residencewhere you sleep normally
College students at school
Homeless where you find them
Undocumented aliens
Not visitors or tourists
Military and foreign service persons where they normally
live when hereissue of the Mormons
Adjustments
Concept
Coverage Errors
Most
Differential Undercount
Mainly
Minority
whites
Overall
Content Error
Accuracy
Vital Statistics
Birth
Certificates
Death Certificates
Marriage, divorce and abortion events
Compiled as vital statistics
Population registers in other countries
Examples on pages 64-65 in the text
Vital Statistics
Graunt,
Halleymortality probabilities
Combining vital statistics and censuses
Increase reliability
Intercensalbetween the census
Administrative Data
Important
INS
Administrative
Sample Surveys
Problem
Surveys
American Community Survey, Current Population Survey
are adjuncts to the census and intercensal
Survey on Income and Program Participation
American Housing Survey
Family Growth and NHIS surveys
Labor Force Survey
World Fertility Survey
US and UN are major surveyors, NGOs fund them as well
Historical Sources
Church
GIS
Geographic Information Systems
Combine mapping and location with demographic data
Computer based
DIME (dual independent map encoding)
TIGER (Topological Integrated Geographic Encoding and
Referencing)
Master address filesphone books and yellow pages
Surveillance Systems
Found
data on disk
Sanitized to prevent invasion of privacy
Demographic yearbook
Population Bulletin
Statistical Abstract of the United States
Juried Journals
IPCSR for surveys
Summary
Knowledge
is power
Statistics, properly utilized are powerful tools to
knowledge
Sources of data are government and nongovernment based
Problem of error and the influence of error on
policy and planningissues of political import
Main Points
In order to study population processes you need data of
births, deaths and migration plus assessments of why these
processes change
Census is basic to this process
Most of the world has undergone a census in the last two
decadesrecent information plentiful and available for
use
US every 10 years, Canada 5 years and others sporadic
Main Points
Error
Main Points
Historical
10