Towards the Geographies of the 2001 UK Census of Population

A single geographical base has traditionally been created for each census of population in the United Kingdom, aimed primarily at organizing the enumeration task. The subsequent use of this enumeration geography for diverse purposes has been problematic but unavoidable. This paper examines how new digital spatial data and GIS technology are making possible the creation of separate geographies of the 2001 Census for data collection, validation, output, specification and use. The paper explores the implications of these changes for the development of a national spatial data infrastructure and for geographical research involving the census more generally.     

The Scale of Dissimilarity: Concepts, Measurement and an Application to Socio-Economic Variation Across England and Wales

The paper considers the scale – the measure, extent, and dimension – of uneven distributions in space for a wide range of census variables. While the traditional 'index of dissimilarity' is affected by random as well as social factors, a solution presented here allows the index to be calculated even for very small populations. Small areas across England and Wales tend to be fairly similar demographically but quite diverse on ethnic and socio-economic measures. Differences between areas become more noticeable as we move from districts, to wards, to enumeration districts, but the rate of differentiation depends heavily on the variables considered.     

From nation to population: the racialisation of ‘Métis’ in the Canadian census†

ABSTRACT. Between 1996 and 2001 the ‘Métis population’ of Canada skyrocketed from 204,000 to 292,000, an astonishing and demographically improbable increase of 43 per cent. Most puzzling about this ‘increase’ is not so much the unpersuasive explanations offered by statisticians and others but, more fundamentally, the underlying assumption that such a thing as a ‘Métis population’ exists at all. In contrast, I argue that such an idea constitutes an artifact of Canada's racial/colonial episteme in which ‘the Métis’– formerly an indigenous nation invaded and displaced in the Canadian nation‐state's westward expansion – have been reduced in public and administrative discourse to include any indigenous individual who identifies as Métis: reduced, in other words, to (part of) a race. The paper argues further that the authority of the Canadian census as a privileged forum of contemporary meaning‐making in Canadian society is such that the lack of explicit Census categories to distinguish Métis Nation allegiance further naturalises a racialised construction of Métis at the expense of an indigenously national one.     

Learning and teaching online with the UK census

This paper describes the online learning and teaching resources that are currently being developed for the contemporary and historical UK censuses as part of a project that is being funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to support its ‘Information Environment’. The online resources are intended to support learners and teachers in the UK Higher and Further Education sectors who are interested in UK census data. A variety of resources is available including: interactive online tutorials with practical exercises, textual materials, web pages and PowerPoint slides. The materials have been designed to be as flexible as possible encouraging a ‘pick and mix’ approach to the use of the resources. The resources are also intended to facilitate the use of 2001 census data. Feedback from student piloting and consultation workshops is also considered. All the resources can be accessed at: http://www.chcc.ac.uk.     

U.S. Census Bureau Area Measurements for Sub-County Areas and Clarence Batschelet’s U.S. Population Density Map of 1942

ABSTRACT

During the Second World War, the U.S. Bureau of the Census published a novel population density map for the U.S. that used minor civil divisions as its areal basis. Prior to that time, the national-level area measurements required to calculate densities for such sub-county units were unavailable. The data that enabled the production of the map published in 1942 were collected by clerical workers who were employed as part of a joint project between the Census Bureau and the Works Progress Administration. The area measurements, made using planimeters, were used with 1940 Census of Population data to compute densities that are represented on the map using a choropleth technique.     

How Many Household Formation Systems Were There in Historic Europe? A View Across 256 Regions Using Partitioning Clustering Methods

Abstract

This paper reconsiders one of historical demography’s most pertinent research problems: the fiddly concept of historical household formation systems. Using a massive repository of historical census micro-data from the North Atlantic Population Project and the Mosaic project, the four markers of Hajnal’s household formation rules were operationalized for 256 regional rural populations from Catalonia in the west to central Siberia in the east, between 1700 and 1926. We then analyze these data using the Partitioning Around Medoids algorithm in order to empirically derive the “natural groups” based on the similarity and the dissimilarity of their household formation traits. Although regional differences between European household formation systems are readily identifiable, the two statistically most valid clustering solutions (k?=?2; k?=?4) provide a more complex picture of household formation regimes than Hajnal and his followers have been able to compile. Our finding that when regional populations cluster on similar household formation characteristics, they often come from both sides of Hajnal’s “imaginary line,” calls into question strict bipolar divisions of the continent. By and large, we show that the long-lived idea of two household formation systems in preindustrial Europe obscures considerable variability in historical family behavior, and therefore needs to be amended.     

Reconstruction of birth histories using children ever born and children surviving data from the 1900 and 1910 U.S. censuses

Abstract

This paper describes a method to reconstruct birth histories for women in the 1900 and 1910?U. S. census IPUMS samples. The method is an extension of an earlier method developed by Luther and Cho (1988 Luther, N. Y., and L. Cho. 1988. Reconstruction of birth histories from census and household survey data. Population Studies 42 (3):451–72. doi: 10.1080/0032472031000143586.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The basic method relies on the number of children ever born, number of children surviving, number of children coresident in the household and age-specific fertility rates for the population to probabilistically assign an “age” to deceased and unmatched children. Modifications include the addition of an iterative Poisson regression model to fine-tune age-specific fertility inputs. The potential of birth histories for the study of the U.S. fertility transition is illustrated with a few examples.