Friday 12 September 2003, 8:45am, Conference Centre
Kaija Ruotsalainen, Statistics, Finland
From questionnaire-based enumeration to register-based population census: Finnish experiences
In Finland, the history of population censuses goes back over 250 year. Compilation of population statistics was started in the Kingdom of Sweden - to which Finland then belonged - at the submission of the parliament in 1749. The data were collected with special statistical questionnaires from parishes which were obliged to keep registers on the parish population, such as number of population, age structure and marital status.
Thanks to this, Sweden and Finland today have the longest unbroken series of annual data on population and population changes. Besides requesting purely demographic data, the first collection of data from the parishes in 1749 already also contained a question about the social status of each person. In a way it could be said that in Sweden and Finland the first population census was taken in 1749, and already then exploited administrative data.
From 1870 to 1930, questionnaire-based population censuses were conducted in the largest Finnish towns at ten-year intervals, but the very first direct, nationwide census of the whole population was not drawn until 1950.
The 1960s was an important decade in the evolvement of register-based statistics. The first exhaustive register of persons resident in Finland was established by the Social Insurance Institution. The most significant innovation in this connection was the introduction of the personal identity code in 1964. The next major milestone was the founding of the Population Register Centre in 1969. Both the founding of the population register and the introduction of the personal identity code had far-reaching consequences to the development of register-based statistics. At the end of the same decade the taxation registers were founded, as well.
Register data were exploited for the first time in the 1970 population census. The census data were collected in connection with population registration and the individual questionnaires were pre-filled with the data in the population register. Although a vast majority of the information was still collected with the questionnaires, the personal identification code was used as a link to obtain data on religion and municipality of birth for each individual person from the central population register. Data on income were also already drawn from the tax authorities' register in the 1970 census.
In the 1970s and 1980s administrative registers were gradually used more and more in the compiling of statistics, as well as in population censuses, and in 1987 the data describing the population's economic activity were drawn from registers for the first time. The 1990 population census was then taken by exploiting register data only, making Finland the second country in the world after Denmark to have achieved this.
The primary reasons for starting to exploit administrative and other register data were the lowering of costs, advancement in data systems and processing methods, reduction of response burdens on individual people and enterprises and strongly increased demand of regional information.
Utilisation of administrative data as a source for statistics in order to rationalise their production is accepted by the Finnish society. This becomes particularly clear from the Finnish Statistics Act, which entered into force in 1994, and according to which statistical authorities must primarily exploit existing data sources, on the one hand, while on the other, the authorities controlling these sources are obliged to supply the data in their possession to statistical authorities if they are deemed suitable for statistics production purposes. This approval by society also means that statistical authorities must adhere to strict data protection procedures and that the general public has general confidence in the activities of statistical authorities.
Kaija Ruotsalainen
00022 Statistics Finland
Finland
Tel: +358 (0)9 1734 3599
Email: kaija.ruotsalainen@stat.fi