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PHC 2011 will provide detailed statistics on local governments of Estonia

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Posted on 12 January 2010, 10:00
According to the discussions on today’s Partner Day of Statistics Estonia “How to Measure Regional Development”, the information to be collected in the course of the 2011 Population and Housing Census (PHC 2011) will provide significantly more detailed information on the necessities of the population of local governments.

“The results of the 2011 Population and Housing Census will provide thorough statistics on the life of the population of Estonia also on local government level — up to now the corresponding detailed data are missing.

During the last decade, with relation to the real estate boom, several re-locations of the population have taken place, in the course of which the population number of local governments and composition of the population have changed”, said Diana Beltadze, the Project Manager of PHC 2011 in her report. “It is evident that due to the smallness of Estonia and its local governments the surveys are not able to provide sufficient information on socio-economic indicators on rural municipality or village level. This has been a problem in many local governments”, said Ms Beltadze.

The data of PHC 2011 are used by Estonia as well as by the European Union for analysing the migration, unemployment and low density areas and for shaping policies.

According to Ms Beltadze, the biggest merit of census data is the possibility to observe different issues, e.g. employment and labour market problems, on local government level. “This knowledge is essential in organising the work of local governments, in estimating sustainability and in planning development strategy,” she added.

The pilot Census of PHC 2011 imitating the Population and Housing Census due in two years’ time will take place in nine local governments of Estonia until the end of March. The pilot Census will be carried out in two parts: e-census (from 31 December 2009 to 21 February 2010) and face-to-face interviews (from 5 to 31 March 2010), where enumerators will visit those households who did not participate in e-census or whose questionnaires were incomplete.

In the course of the pilot Census of PHC 2011 over 10,000 persons and their dwellings will be enumerated. Different regions and settlement units all over Estonia have been selected for the pilot Census in order to test thoroughly the organization and information systems of the census. The pilot Census will be carried out in Tallinn, Narva, Püssi, Pärnu-Jaagupi, Paide, Aravete, and in Rae, Rõuge and Viimsi rural municipalities.

In 2011 the Census will be conducted for the eleventh time on the territory of Estonia. The previous censuses were carried out in 1881, 1897, 1922, 1934, 1941, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989 and 2000. In 2010 and 2011 Population and Housing Censuses will be held in the majority of countries all over the world.