Incorporating housing statistics in the Demographic Yearbook

1
Expert Group Meeting to Review the United
Nations Demographic Yearbook System 10-14
November 2003 New York
Incorporating housing statistics in the
Demographic Yearbook data collection system
Demographic and Social Statistics Branch United
Nations Statistics Division
2
International data collection and dissemination
of housing statistics

• Compendium of Housing Statistics 1971
• Compendium of Housing Statistics 1972-74
• Compendium of Housing Statistics 1975-77
• Compendium of Human Settlements Statistics, 1983
  
• Compendium of Human Settlements Statistics, 1995
• Compendium of Human Settlements Statistics, 2002
• Major source of data Housing censuses

3
Compendium of Human Settlements Statistics

• housing statistics
• social economic characteristics
• land use
• health and health services
• transport, energy and communication
• environmental pollution
• infrastructure
• crime
• circulation of daily newspapers
• etc.

4
Countries that provided data on housing topics to
the Compendium of Housing Statistics and
Compendium of Human Settlements Statistics
List of housing topics
List of housing topics 1971 1972-74 1975-77 1983 1995 2001
Living quarters 123 124 147 67 93 79
Rooms 132 133 127 68 82 64
Tenure 118 122 134 71 69 71
Water supply system and type of toilet 125 130 136 74 71 61
Electric lighting, kitchen bath 130 134 137 76 71 49
Solid waste disposal - - - 15 - 17
Fuel used for cooking - - - - 72 47
5
Main reason for decline in the reporting

• Human settlement questionnaire containing large
  number of topics and covering wide areas such as
• social economic characteristics of the
  population land use health and health services
  transport, energy and communication and
  environmental pollution.

• Additional reason Some countries may have
  stopped collecting data on topics such as
  availability of electricity and water

6
Basic housing topics collected by 131 countries
in the 2000 round of censuses
Building 52 Material of
outer walls 56 Age
45 Location of living quarters 55 Living
quarters - type of 60 Ownership - type of
40 Rooms - number of
84 Floor space 28 Water supply
system 81
Toilet sewerage facilities 86 Bathing
facilities 56 Cooking facilities
57 Lighting and/or electricity
64 Solid waste disposal
36 Occupancy by gt1 households 26 No. of
occupants 55 Tenure
60 Rental and owner-occupied housing
costs 27
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Proposal 1 Incorporate the housing data
collection and processing into the DYB system

• Benefits
• consistency of reported housing and population
  data
• sharing of common technical notes and footnotes
  already in the Demographic Yearbook database
• enables building of internationally comparable
  historical series
• The DYB database allows for continuous updating
  of data
• Shares benefits from ongoing developments in the
  DYB, e.g. Data editing at the input stage
  Prefilled quetionnaires Possibility of online
  access

8
Proposal 2 Reduce the list of housing topics to
be collected

• Buildings, number of
• Living quarters, number of
•  
• Household heads and living quarters
• Ownership of the housing unit
• Rooms, number of
• Water supply

• Toilet facilities
• Bathing facilities
• Cooking facilities
• Fuel used for cooking
• Type of lighting
• Solid waste disposal
• Tenure

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In conclusion, the meeting is requested to

• assess the merit of incorporating housing
  statistics in the Demographic Yearbook data
  collection system and
• comment on the appropriateness of continuing the
  collection of data on the proposed 13 housing
  statistics topics.