Census 2000 begins smoothly

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the last month you know that Belize’s once-in-a-decade census is now in progress. Today I visited Belmopan to see how things are going.

On May 13th, the Central Statistical Office started the work of updating that information and launched Census Day 2000. The country was divided into enumeration districts and interviewers, a total of 400, have been combing the country and getting the necessary information from each household. The information collected will replace the old data collected in the 1991 Census.

Sylvan Roberts, Chief Statistician

“Each of these ED’s is allocated to an interviewer who is expected to comb that entire ED. There are clear boundary descriptions. There is a map which the interviewer is given and that interviewer should stick within that map and then canvass the entire area list all buildings, all dwelling units, all households and interview all persons living within those households.”

To prepare for the exercise, each enumerator had to undergo a 6-day training course.

Sylvan Roberts

“Because we realize that the public will not respond to people who are not professionally…who do not professionally conduct themselves. So we had to emphasize in the training a lot of techniques to ensure that professionalism prevails.”

Of course not all enumerators have been professional. Persons who have been interviewed complain that enumerators have been asking questions that are too personal and inappropriate or that the interviews were slowly conducted. Chief Statistician, Sylvan Roberts says they welcome all complaints and do take measures to correct the problem. However he admits that they expected the start of the exercise to be accompanied by a few glitches.

Sylvan Roberts

“So we expected that the first week would have been slow but now–in fact just yesterday–I got a report from the districts that the number of questionnaires that the interviewers are turning in are many more than in the first week and they are gradually increasing. So we are thinking that by the 3rd week they should reach the target that we have set to ensure that within 6 weeks we have a good coverage.”

But it’s not only the conduct of enumerators that have been brought into question. Some persons have been less than helpful.

Martha Castillo, Enumerator

“We’ve come across a few foreigners who don’t want to give any information, who refused to talk to us or other people. We have a few locals who just refuse to give information also.”

Jacqueline Woods

“So when enumerators like yourselves are confronted with that type of situation, what is it you do?”

Martha Castillo

“Well we try again and if we don’t get any response then we refer it to our district supervisor.”

Jacqueline Woods

The exercise is expected to be completed by the end of June. At that time, approximately 250,000 persons would have been interviewed.

People are being asked a host of questions that include topics such as housing, migration, education, marital status, ethnicity, religion, disability and the environment. Roberts says while the questionnaire may look thick, the booklet has been designed so that interviews are not time consuming.

Sylvan Roberts

“This looks like a lot, but there is a lot of repetition here. Why? Because the booklet accommodates 5 persons. So if your household is less than 5 persons then one booklet will suffice. If it is only three persons for example, only 3 persons will be filled in. For each person, there are two sheets of questions and even so, there are many skip patterns. Some of the questions are skipped if they do not apply, so they have to be printed there just in case they apply to the person. But if they do not apply, the interviewer will skip to another section which means it will move much faster.”

Overall, the enumerators say they have been welcomed by most households.

Jacqueline Woods

“What has the response been like from the general public?”

Lisa Cano, Enumerator

“The response has been great. So far I have not received any refusals. The people have been quite warm, they welcomed myself quite nicely into their home.”

Roberts says the final census report is expected to be delivered to cabinet by September. In 1991 the largest ethnic group recorded in Belize was the Mestizo followed by the Creole. This year, Roberts says because they have witnessed no major demographic shift they expect the results to be similar.

The public is asked to cooperate with the census enumerators and if they have any concerns please contact the Central Statistical Office in Belmopan.