The census is postponed for six months – Society

The Office of Statistics of the Republic (SORS) announced today that, due to the coronary virus pandemic, the Census of population, households and dwellings will be postponed for six months and will be held in October 2021 instead of April.

Kragujevac Photo: Beta / Miloš Miškov

The decision was made due to the unfavorable epidemiological situation, which, as noted, can significantly compromise the preparations and field implementation of the 2021 Census, as the most complex and expensive statistical research.

It was indicated that the SBS managed to implement all the activities planned so far in the preparations for the 2021 Census, whose implementation in the field, in accordance with the 2021 Population, Household and Housing Census Law, is scheduled for April next year.

It was specified that in the next period it is necessary to implement activities that require direct contact, both of the Institute’s employees with the direct participants in the census (instructors, enumerators, members of census commissions and other people who are dedicated to enumerating specific categories of population ), and direct contact of instructors and enumerators with citizens.

The riskiest are the selection and training of approximately 20,000 candidates for instructors and enumerators, scheduled for January-March next year, as well as the collection of field data in April 2021, when 15,000 enumerators should go to the field and visit each one. within a month. apartment / house and list the entire population.

This includes people housed in nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, homes for children without parental care, students and pupils in dormitories and boarding schools, migrants in reception centers and other categories of the population in collective accommodation who are at increased risk. of infection.

Taking into account the aforementioned activities and the deadlines for their completion, but also the uncertain epidemiological situation and the danger of the spread of infectious diseases during the census, after consultations with epidemiologists and exhaustive analysis of various scenarios, it was decided to postpone the 2021 Census.

The SBS indicated that in making the decision to postpone the census, information on plans from other countries that apply the same census method was also considered.

Eurostat’s position is that the coronavirus pandemic has a direct impact on the production of European statistics and that it is increasingly clear that many countries are facing significant difficulties in conducting the census.

The year before the field census is crucial to planning and testing the efficiency of systems and processes, which could not be done due to limitations caused by the pandemic, so Scotland and Ireland, who planned to conduct the census in April 2021, officially postponed the census. by April 2022.

Other European countries are considering different scenarios, adjusting plans and developing additional strategies to conduct the census, the statement said.

As noted, the decision to postpone the census is supported by the recommendation of the United Nations Department of Statistics (UNSD) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which in the context of the negative impact of the current pandemic , issued a set of recommendations in September 2020. The most reasonable solution suggests postponing the census in countries that have intensified preparatory activities.

The postponement of the Population, Household and Housing Census in 2021 also imposed the need to postpone the Census of Agriculture in Serbia, which was scheduled for October 2021, until 2022.

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