Census

[ellarien]

Yesterday, like most people in the UK, I got a census form through my letterbox. It's interesting to note the differences between this one and the US census I filled out last year.

The UK form is quite a bit more intrusive than the US one -- there are four pages of questions about the household, including number of rooms and number of bedrooms and a complete map of the relationships of everyone in the household, and four pages per person of individual questions, including religion, marital or same-sex civil partnership status, detailed education and employment status, including commuting habits, and health. (The health question is pretty vague: "How is your health in general?" with options ranging from "Very good" to "Very bad.") And that's the form everyone gets -- not the special extended one.

Also there's question 17 (on the national identity/ethnic group/religion page): "This question intentionally left blank: --> Go to 18." It looks rather as though they wanted to ask something and were advised at a late stage that they couldn't do that, but a bit of googling suggests that that's where the question about the Welsh language would be in the version for Wales.

The US one? American readers will no doubt correct me, but I think it asked for name, date of birth, ethnicity and race (separately), and whether the address was rented or owned. Possibly marital status? I'm pretty sure I only had to fill in about two pages as a lone householder, anyway.

The warnings about dire social and legal consequences for not filling it in/out are about the same in both cases.

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

I worked on the 2010 census in the US, and it only asked about marital status in terms of "how is this person related to the first person listed at this address?" If a person lived alone, there was no question about marital status. The census needed "person 1" to be at least 15, and I'm sure there were families that finessed the issue by putting a young adult first. Nobody ever asked if the "person 2" listed as "biological mother" was married to the "person 3" listed as "adoptive mother" (or "biological father" or "stepmother" or "stepfather.")

The question of marital status was a problem for couples living together without benefit of marriage rights. They could list the second person as a "spouse," or an "unmarried partner," or a "roommate." (There were other choices for relatives living together.) I was working in the Boston area, and more than one person asked me how they should answer for a federal document, when they were only married in Massachusetts. I said it was official census policy to take people's word about whether they were married or not.

[ellarien]

Thanks for the info!

Ours has, under household questions
How is person 2 related to person 1
How is person 3 related to persons 1, 2
How is person 4 related to persons 1, 2, 3 ...
and so on up to person 6. (If there are more than six people in the household you need a continuation form.)

Available options include husband or wife, same-sex civil partner, partner, and unrelated as well as various degrees of blood or step-relationship. It doesn't distinguish between biological and adopted children, but counts foster-children under unrelated.

Then, under individual questions, there's a question on legal marital/civil partnership status with nine possible options, starting with "Never married and never registered a same-sex civil partnership" and then split into two parallel columns for married/separated/divorced/widowed and the civil-partnership equivalents. This one's clearly only interested in legally formalized relationships. (The civil partnership option is only available to same-sex couples, and as I understand it is supposed to be equivalent to marriage in all but name and -- so far, though there has been talk of changing this -- the ability to have it solemnized in a religious ceremony. It only came in in 2004, so it hasn't come up on the census before.)


Over-sixteens can request a separate individual form if they don't want to share their information with their room-mates.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Your Googling has led you to the correct answer. Question 17 on our copy says, "Can you understand, speak, read or write Welsh? (Tick all that apply)."

[ellarien]

Thanks! (I wonder if the same question appears on the Welsh-language version? Or does everyone in Wales just get a bilingual form?)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I've just checked and I can confirm that the exact same question appears (in Welsh) on the Welsh language version of the form. (We have been sent two copies of the form, one Welsh, on English.)

At first glance, "None of the above" makes no sense on the Welsh form. If the person is filling in the Welsh version of the form, they must at least be able to read Welsh! But of course the questions apply to the other members of the household, so though the person filling in the form may be a Welsh speaker, other family members may not be.

(frozen) (no subject)

[ellarien]

Good point!