Improving the Quality of Population Census 2008

Census data generates information on total population count and its various socio-economic and demographic characteristics disaggregated by age and sex from national to provincial and down to district, tehsil and village level. The utility of these data is crucial for studying historical trends and for planning and formulating development programmes, especially for the recently devolved set up of administration. The next Population and Housing Census is likely to be carried out in 2008. The procedure of census data collection is lengthy and costly, and data compilation and its tabulation are subject to errors and inadequacies which have strong implications for policy formulation. Reporting errors during the data collection stage are also common, which need to be minimised………………………This Policy Viewpoint has been prepared by Naushin Mahmood, Ghulam Yasin Soomro, G. M. Arif, M. Framurz Khan Kiani, and Khalid Hameed Sheikh.