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1/10 If you want to know how your country is doing on #COVID19, size matters: 300 deaths in a country of 1 million people is a very different thing from 300 deaths in a country of 100 million. So how do we know how many people live in a country? Step up, THE CENSUS...
2/10 Ideally every 10 years, a government has a census and counts everyone, and then uses that as the basis for estimating populations in between. Governments have always done this. (This brilliant book has a census story on every page) https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/andrew-whitby/the-sum-of-the-people/9781541619333/ @EconAndrew
3/10 Sometimes, 100s of 1000s of enumerators go house to house. Or people get a form to send back or fill in online. Doing the census is a huge task. So many people are involved that in the US, when the census starts, it can affect the employment figures https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-05/census-hires-could-make-u-s-jobs-report-less-than-meets-the-eye
4/10 Census data really matter. They might be used to allocate votes between regions, or to decide government spending. If some groups are underrepresented, then inequalities are hard-wired into the system for a decade. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-census-redistricting-insight/republicans-want-census-data-on-citizenship-for-redistricting-idUKKCN1RK18H
5/10 Sometimes people aren’t counted because of wars or other crises. There’s been no census in Afghanistan since 1979, or in the DRC since 1984. More than half of national statistics offices surveyed had been forced to delay a census because of COVID. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/covid19-response/covid19-nso-survey-report.pdf
6/10 And sometimes people are missed because they are hard to find. In Ghana, the government estimated that 3% of the population were missed off the last census, and they are trying hard to count them this time: https://www.voanews.com/africa/ghana-aims-capture-vulnerable-populations-first-digital-census
7/10 But undercounting can be more systematic and reveal deeper inequalities. Children are often undercounted: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-million-children-didnt-show-up-in-the-2010-census-how-many-will-be-missing-in-2020/
8/10 And groups that are already discriminated against like Black Americans: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/datablog/2020/feb/27/2020-us-census-black-people-mistakes-count
9/10 Governments can do the census in a way that hides groups they don't want to admit exist, marginalising them further. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26807239
10/10 Inequalities in the census lead to inequalities in political voice and resources. Data can’t deliver equality, but it’s easier to fight for it with data on your side. One step to dismantling inequality and injustice worldwide is for you, and everyone you know, to be counted
