SARs NEWSLETTER

No 13 - March 1999-03-26

SPECIAL ISSUE

The 2001 Census White Paper

 

The White Paper on the 2001 Census has now been published and can be downloaded from the Web (http://www.ons.gov.uk). ONS have also published their 2001 Census Information Paper which gives more background on the planning and timetable of the census. We are, therefore, in a position to consider the implications of the content of the 2001 Census for SARs and to move towards finalising the design of 2001 SARs.

In this Newsletter, we draw out some of the implications of the design and content of the 2001 Census for SARs users. It is important that there is an opportunity for users to voice their requirements over the level of detail of these questions which is included in the SARs output. We also need to obtain detailed feedback on the current proposals for the structure and format of 2001 SARs. We have conducted extensive consultation and development work in the past 2-3 years and this meeting is intended to consolidate these views so that we can make a firm proposal to ONS and to ESRC/JISC.

To achieve these aims we have organised two workshops, one to be held in Manchester (21 May 1999) and one in London (2 July 1999). By holding two meetings we hope to maximise the number of people who can attend. Details of the meeting and booking forms are enclosed. Roadshows are also being arranged by ONS, with details in the latest Census News No 41, and these provide another forum through which views on SARs 2001 can be expressed.

 

Implications of the 2001 Census plans for SARs

Change in population base:

 

Students and boarding school children will be recorded as resident at their term-time address irrespective of where they are enumerated on Census day.

This is a change from the 1991 Census which asked the form-filler to record students and boarding school children as usually resident in their parental home. However, ONS propose to record basic information (name, age, marital status, whether in full-time education) for all children who live in the household during the vacation.

It will be important that this information is retained on the Household SAR to allow analysis of household and family composition on a comparable basis to 1991. We need to ensure that analysis of family composition using 2001 SARs will not give artefactual differences with 1991. Without this information we would not be able to make accurate analyses of the extent to which young people are still living with parents or of the family composition of that sector of the population most likely to send children to boarding school (ie upper income brackets).

 

Details of visitors enumerated at their address of enumeration will not be collected.

The 1991 SARs contained records on visitors and usual residents. The possibility of duplicate sampling usually meant that the analyst needed to omit ‘visitors’ from their analysis. The exclusion of this information is unlikely to be detrimental to most researchers and, for many, will make analysis more straightforward.

 

 

Revised questions

Relationship within household

Households with two or more people will be asked about the relationship between each person in the household. This should provide much more accurate data on family and household relationships than was available for 1991. This will be of substantial benefit to users of the hierarchical household SAR, particularly in the analysis of large and complex households.

 

Ethnic group, including a question on Northern Ireland

The ethnic group question has been very widely used in analyses of the 1991 Census. The 2001 Census question will be different for Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales - which will require vigilance for SARs users conducting GB or UK-wide analyses. The England and Wales question will be:

 

 

What is your ethnic group?

Chose one section from (a) to (e) then tick the appropriate box to indicateyour cultural background

(a) White

British

Irish

Any other White Background

please write in below

(b) Mixed

White and Black Caribbean

White and Black African

White and Asian

Any other mixed background

please write in below

(c) Asian or Asian British

Indian

Pakistani

Bangladeshi

Any other Asian background

please write in below

(d) Black or Black British

Caribbean

African

Any other Black background

please write in below

e) Chinese or Other ethnic group

Chinese

Any other

 

please write in below

 

The question in Scotland and Northern Ireland will resemble that asked in 1991 except for the addition of a ‘mixed ethnic group’ question and, in Northern Ireland, a category for Irish Traveller.

It is widely recognised that ethnicity is a fluid and subjective attribute that is not fixed in time. Therefore, any comparisons between 1991 and 2001 - even with identical question wording - would be subject to redefinition by the form-filler. In understanding the construction of the 2001 categories by comparison with the 1991 categories, SARs users will benefit from being able to use the detailed information on country of birth. For example, this will allow the identification of the Irish-born in each census and, for the 2001 SARs, the overlap between Irish-born and Irish ethnic group can be established. Detailed work on the composition of the 1991 ethnic groups (Holdsworth and Dale Occasional Paper; Dale and Holdsworth, 1997) provides a basis on which comparisons with 2001 can be made.

 

Qualifications

A question on educational qualifications will be designed to capture the highest qualification achieved. This will provide much fuller coverage than the 1991 question which was restricted to the minority of the adult population with post A-level qualifications. However, less information will be available on the subject of qualifications although, in England and Wales, information will be asked on whether people have teaching, medical, nursing and/or dental qualifications.

 

Additional questions

SARs from the 2001 Census will benefit from a number of new questions. Proposed questions are:

 

General health

A question will ask respondents to assess their own health over the preceding 12 months as either ‘Good’, ‘Fairly good’ or ‘Not good’. This question is widely asked in other surveys and has been shown to have good predictive power in health policy and provision of health services. For SAR users, it will be valuable to be able to combine this with information on long-term limiting illness.

Provision of unpaid personal care

This question is aimed at people who provide unpaid care for a friend or relative with a long-term illness, health problem or disability. It is not confined to care given within the household. Information will also be asked on the time spent each week in providing care

This question will make an important contribution to social service planning. It will also be widely used in the analysis of gender differences in time use and allow some measure of unpaid work to be included with hours of paid work. It is important to note, however, that the question will exclude time spent in domestic work and child-care.

 

Time since last employment

This new question will ask those persons stating that they were not working in the week before the census, the year in which they last worked. This will be a considerable value in assessing length of time out of work for those currently employed and, for women looking after the family, the date of their last job. This information will greatly enhance the value of occupational information for those who go on to provide details.

For people who are in paid work or who have previously held a job, detailed occupational information will be asked, recorded to a revised version of the Standard Occupational Coding. Industry of employment will also be coded to the latest SIC classification. This detailed information is greatly valued by many SAR users and will be further enhanced by two additional questions on employment status (whether the person works or worked as an employee or as self-employed with, or without, employees) and a direct question on supervisory status. In the 1991 Census, employment status was combined with a question on economic activity and supervisory status was obtained from the occupational description. These direct questions should give more accurate information and will be important to retain as separate questions in the SAR file.

 

Size of employer’s organisation Size of employer’s organisation or company at the place of work will be another direct question which will be of considerable value in deriving additional social classifications and in analysis of employment and labour market issues.

 

Religion in England an Wales - subject to change in the census legislation

A new question in religion will take the form:

What is your religion?

Tick one box only

None
Christian (including Church of England,Catholic, Protestant and all other Christian denominations)
Buddhist
Hindu
Muslim
Sikh
Jewish
Any other religion

please write in below

 

In Northern Ireland, the traditional religion question will be retained, but those who answer ‘no religion’ will be asked to record the religion in which they were brought up.

It will be important that the full detail of these questions is retained in the SARs output. The analytical value will be considerable - for example in allowing cross-classifications with the ethnic group question.

Consideration of income question

There has been much discussion over the need for an income question and this is still under consideration. A question will be included in the Census Rehearsal.

We hope that the implications of these changes will form a topic for discussion at the meetings planned for 21 May and 2 July. We hope you will be able to attend and give us your views.