Census in Iceland 2011 Paper Presented at the Nordic Address Meeting in Myvatn 10-11 June 2009
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June 2009 Ómar S Harðarson Statistics Iceland, Demography and census Census in Iceland 2011 Paper presented at the Nordic address meeting in Myvatn 10-11 June 2009 Summary As all other countries in the European Economic Area, Statistics Iceland will conduct a census in Iceland in the year 2011. In this short paper the planned census will be briefly described, but the main focus will be on the question of how to link addresses, dwellings and persons, with some fleeting mention of businesses. This link is the key to a successful census operation. Several strategies will be discussed for reducing the field work or manual linking by making use of existing relationships in the databases that in the care of Statistic Iceland. Past Icelandic censuses As all other countries in the European Economic Area, Statistics Iceland will conduct a census in Iceland in the year 2011. In this short paper the planned census will be briefly described, but the main focus will be on the question of how to link addresses, dwellings and persons, as well as businesses and addresses. This link is the key to a successful census operation. Oldest modern The history of censuses in Iceland is long, but somewhat broken. The first modern census census was conducted in 1703, which also happened to be the first modern census in the world covering a whole country. This is at least what Icelanders hold true, for sure the Danish authorities at the time only considered this as a partial census, covering three “Amts” in the kingdom of Denmark and Norway. Regular full censuses, however, did not start in Iceland until 1835. These continued unbroken until 1960, first with 5 year intervals, but from 1860 every ten years.1 In 1952-4 the Icelandic National Register of Persons (NRP) was established by Statistics Iceland with a special census in October 1953, complementing the 1950 census. All the census records were entered into punch-cards for machine processing. These records were updated yearly, and later quarterly and monthly, until 1968 when they were transferred unto tapes. This continued until 1986 when the NRP became current and updated on a daily basis.2 The mechanisation of the NRP enabled annual complete statistics on the population by sex, age, residence and marital status. 1 Statistics Iceland: Manntal á Íslandi 1. desember 1950. Reykjavík 1958. 2 Hallgrímur Snorrason: Endurskipulagning Þjóðskrár. Erindi á fundi Skýrslutæknifélags Íslands 1. október 1985, http://www.hagstofa.is/Pages/1525, extracted 7 May 2009. 2 2 The importance of taking a decennial census was greatly diminished with the mechanisation of the NRP. In 1969 Statistics Iceland believed, too optimistically as it turned out, that new technology and the new Business Register would obviate the traditional census.1 No census was thus taken in 1970. Useful information about the occupation of the people was, however, not to be gleaned from the Business Register. The plans for a fully electronic census had to be postponed indefinitely, but in the meantime a traditional census was taken in 1981. No means, however, were found to conduct a census in 1990 and none in 2000, as the development of personal register statistics apart from the demographic registers proved to be too slow and a successful registered based census thus too costly. In late 2007 Statistical Iceland deemed that the time was ripe for attempting to connect the various dots. Although the registers on the business side are still not in a good shape, developments in sampling surveys, such as the LFS and the SILC, and especially in the Property Register, allow Statistics Iceland to focus on the linkage between persons and residences. Linking the National Register and a register of dwellings will enable statistics on households, families and dwellings, which is the key element currently missing in the Icelandic statistical system. Data on education and occupation is still incomplete in the registers, but can be imputed by using large sample surveys. Current state of address information in the NRP and the Business Register The current format of the NRP address only allows for identifying the street address. The address code or identifier is a numeric code of 12 digits that are grouped together in three main components. All three components are loaded with information, which makes the code volatile and susceptible to changes. Figure 1 shows how the code is constructed. Figure 1. The Address Identifier in the National Register of Persons Municipality Street¹ Street-number² R M M M S S S N H H H A Region Urban nucleus / District Street-number Suffix ¹ SSS=999: Rural SSS=000: Unspecified ² In rural areas the 4 digit code refers uniquely to each farm or dwelling. The Address Code Due to merging of municipalities, especially in the 1990s, as well as procedural scheme has burst changes in some municipalities, the sub-component information is no longer reliable. Municipalities have, e.g. merged across regional boundaries, they have consolidated resulting in more than 10 urban nuclei or districts, and some 1 Frv. til laga um fyrirtækjaskrá, greinargerð, þskj. nr. 517, Lagt fyrir á 89. löggjafarþingi, 1968 -69, see also preface to Statistics Iceland: Manntal á Íslandi 1. desember 1960. Reykjavík 1969. 3 municipalities have started to add a suffix to street-numbers outside the range a-j, wreaking havoc to that part of the code. The total number of distinct address codes in the NRP on 1 January 2009 was 64.009. In contrast, the total number of code-changes from 1986 until 1 January 2009 is 23.354.1 The Business Register The NRP was founded as a division within Statistics Iceland but transferred to the Ministry of Justice in 2006. The Icelandic Business Register was also founded by Statistics Iceland in 1969 and remained there as a unit until the Inland Revenue Service received the unit in 2003. For some reason it was decided not to code the addresses of businesses in the same way as those of individuals. In fact it was decided not to code the addresses at all, but to register the addresses of businesses as a free and open alphanumeric text field. The only nod towards the NRP was to also register the 4 digit code of the municipality. On 1 January 2009 the number of distinct addresses in the Business Register was 40,695. 2 These addresses have not been analysed, but it is suspected that the list includes relatively high number of spelling variations as well as other non-standard addresses. In short, it is the opinion of Statistics Iceland that it is high time to move from the current system of address codes towards a more rational, non-informational system of distinct and fixed address identifiers. The current project of establishing the Icelandic Address Register, lead by the Icelandic Property Registry, thus enjoys the full and unstinted support of Statistics Iceland. Matching persons and dwelling units Matching persons and dwelling units is the key to a successful register based population and housing census in Iceland. Without it, no information can be gleaned about households, families or housing – in short, without this match no census can be taken in 2011. For this task Statistics Iceland is dependent upon the active cooperation of the National Registry, and of the Icelandic Property Register. The first maintains the information about persons and their abode, while the latter maintains information about dwelling units and addresses. The matching of persons and dwelling units can be seen as a twofold task. First the matching of street addresses. Second, the matching of persons and dwelling units attached to those street addresses. The address matching is The matching of street addresses in the various register is currently underways, as underways part of the development of the Central Address Register. The National Registry has also started work on adding a dwelling unit identifier to the current address information of the individuals. 1 Datafiles at Statistics Iceland. Own extractions. Active businesses or associations with registered address in Iceland at the end of the year. 2 Datafile at Statistics Iceland. Own extraction. 4 4 There are many practical issues involved in coordinating the work of the different agencies, ensure the cooperation of the population and municipalites, and carry out the effort. The following will, however, mostly ignore those. Instead the paper will focus on estimating the scope or size of the task and discuss general strategies for tackling it. Linking of street addresses of the NRP and of the Business Register to the Address Register Only the text string of With the reorganisation of the Icelandic Property Register (IPR) in the 1990s it was addresses can be matched decided to move away from the address code of the NRP, as these were deemed too unstable for use as an identifier for real property. The codes had been kept as a part of the registration, but had slowly started to diverge due to maintenance issues. The only feasible strategy for linking of the two registers is thus to make it on basis of the text string of the street address, as well as with information about the municipality and/or postal area. Tests for such a linking have already been carried out by the staff of the IPR charged with developing the Address Register. A match was found for 96% of the cases for one municipality (Fjallabyggð), with obvious strategies for further modification of the matching algorithm that may nudge the match rate up to 99%.1 Even if these results cannot be generalised for the whole country 2, it should not be too costly to manually look up the failures.