A Review of Caribbean Population and Housing Census Experiences Using the Long and Short Forms

• Activity Number: 592
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 4, 2011 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: International Association of Survey Statisticians
• Author(s): Linda Hewitt and Godfrey St. Bernard*+
• Companies: International Association of Survey Statisticians and University of the West Indies at St. Augustine
• Keywords: Census enumeration ; Long form ; Short form ; Design-based estimation ; Efficiency ; Caribbean

Abstract

Countries of the Caribbean region have jointly undertaken population and housing censuses since 1960. The regional effort was reinforced given disparities in population size, economic status and availability of financial resources across countries and territories. Earlier censuses were done individually, some dating back to 1844. With the passge of time the efficiency of census-taking within the Caribbean Region has been somewhat compromised due to factors akin to human resources, cultural nuances, financial constraints and methodological challenges. This paper explores the prospect of more efficient models such as the long and short forms. Using data from the 1990 Population and Housing Census, a pilot test was undertaken to compare sample estimates of population parameters with magnitudes derived from complete census counts. Based upon a multistage sampling design targeting households as units of analysis, 98 parameters were estimated with only four yielding estimates that were at least 4 percentage points in excess of the magnitude observed on the basis of the complete census. The paper discussed the prospect of replicating this procedure in other Caribbean juridictions.