I was browsing online yesterday and came across the 2011 Census of Population from Stats Canada that happened to be released on the same day. The notion of doing a survey at the nation-wide level intrigued me so I decided to look in more detail. I was amazed by the large number of stats and figures regarding Canada's population. I was then curious to find their sources of data, methodology, and purpose.
Here is what I learned: the frequency of the census occurs every five years and in-between, there is a "three to four-year process to review content by consulting with users of
data, testing, and developing the questionnaire to ensure the content
reflects changes in Canadian society.". When I read "questionnaire", it rang a bell in my head that I had received one of these questionnaire forms for my family and had to mandatory fill it out (hence there is no random sampling here). So I decided to refresh my memory and check out the questionnaire posted. Looking at the questions, I began to question the quality of the questions being asked and how it would "reflect changes in Canadian society". How does the questions relating to Languages (english, french, other - specify) reflect the population? What if a person speaks multiple languages? Should they ask about ethnical background instead? If so, would that be optional or considered improper (just like in job interviews for example)? How truthfully would the answers be?
Good point! During the census last year, 2 friends and I were staying at my parent's cottage in rural Nova Scotia. We didn't actually have a "house" at that moment because we had just moved out of our apartment in Halifax and were all about to move back to Ontario. We wanted to be counted, so we filled out the census saying the three of us lived at the cottage...it was technically our home in that instant but we didn't stay there too long. This info probably changed the demographics for people under 25 living in that area!
ReplyDeleteI believe they had problems with ethnical backgrounds in the past. When they asked, everyone said Canadian and skewed the data. I might be confusing this with the American census however.
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