Statistical Institute prepares for Census 2020

By Aaron Humes: The Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB), starting in May, will be counting all the population of Belize from Corozal to Toledo, as it does every ten years.

The Census involves a building-to-building exercise for homes, buildings and elsewhere, counting employees, households and otherwise.

Belize is expected to have as many as 420,000 individuals; the Census, according to Miriam Willoughby, SIB Census and Survey Manager, will count residents of Belize by birth, descent, marriage and otherwise – all legal inhabitants regardless of where persons are originally from.

The count concludes in mid-July, for a total of eight weeks and the preliminary count should be released by December.

“The Census overall looks at not only the population and different aspects of the population; we also look at the housing aspect. So there are two questionnaires essentially; there’s a household questionnaire and that will capture information on the housing characteristics – the type of building you live in; your sanitation facilities; your cooking facilities, etcetera. And then we also capture information on food security of the household; if anyone has migrated to live in another country; we also capture information on if the household is involved in agricultural production, so that’s at the household level,” Willoughby said.

The second level covers the usual personal statistics – age, sex, gender, religion, migration status (travel to other countries) and so on.

The individual data is protected and the final figures are aggregated.

In December the SIB conducted its mapping exercise for a snapshot of the country, building by building, and it’s pilot census training invigilators for the real thing.

We’ll have more on this story in the course of this week.

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