Demographic and Social Statistics

There is a growing interest to use administrative registers in conducting population and housing censuses. In the recent census round, a number of countries has developed alternative methods to conduct the census, relying fully on administrative registers or combining administrative data with a limited collection of data from a field enumeration or with a full field enumeration. The decision to move to an alternative approach with the use of registers is motivated with many advantages including completeness of coverage, timeliness and less cost. However, this transition has to be planned and managed carefully for successful use of registers for the production of census statistics. The Expert Group meeting will be organised to discuss basic requirements for the use of administrative registers including legal base, establishing comprehensive and reliable population register as a base for the census, considerations for address registers, stakeholder and public approval and other issues related to data confidentiality and data quality. The meeting will bring together census experts from National Statistical Offices, international and regional organisations and individual experts to explore good practices, challenges and lessons learned. The meeting will give an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences for establishing population registers for the use of population and housing censuses and provide input for developing and/or revising international standards and recommendations.