1. Data on Ethnicity – Census
Athens, Greece
25 October 2017

2. Preparation for the Census 2011 – Pilot Census
In the period from 1 to 15 November 2009, in cooperation with the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, the National Council of the Roma National Minority and the Roma Inclusion Office of Vojvodina, and with the financial support of the SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency), the SORS (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia) has been conducted a pilot census.
Pilot census was conducted in 24 enumeration areas (in 23 municipalities) where the 2002 Census of population, households and dwellings recorded the high participation of Roma in total population.
Pilot census covered about 2000 households and 8000 persons.

3. Education of Roma – survey training
The aim of this action was to educate and train a number of Roma for organizing and conducting census activities in order to actively participate in the implementation of the Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in 2011.
Also, one of the objectives of this action was to strengthen mutual trust and cooperation between official statistics and various organizations dealing with Roma issues, which is the basic prerequisite for obtaining quality data, both on the total number of Roma in the Republic of Serbia and on the basic socio-demographic characteristics of members of this ethnic community.
More than 80 Roma (enumerators, instructors, operators, coders) were engaged for the tasks of the Pilot Census.

4. Census 2011
The ethno-cultural characteristics of the population, primarily the ethnicity and mother tongue, although not belonging to the group of the so-called core census topics, still continue to draw major attention of the public in Serbia and in the neighbouring countries.
The question on the ethnicity in the Individual Questionnaire is formulated as an open-type question with a legal notice concerning the fact that pursuant to the Article 47 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia citizens are not obliged to declare themselves on their ethnicity.
Publication named Ethnicity was the first 2011 Census book published by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS).

5. Ethnicity – 2011 Census 1
The data on the ethnic composition of the population are relevant for the understanding of the cultural diversity of the population, position of the ethnic groups in the society, monitoring the migratory flows and other characteristics of the ethnic communities, as well as for the implementation of numerous strategies and policies concerning the ethnic groups.
For this reason, the official statistics has, in all of the censuses – from 1948 to 2011, paid particular attention to the ethnic features of the population, thus creating ample statistical materials primarily on the high number of the ethnic communities on the territory of the Republic of Serbia, as well as on their diverse demographic, educational, socio-economic and other characteristics.

6. Ethnicity – 2011 Census 2
When providing the training for the direct participants in the field implementation of the 2011 Census, it was stressed that the enumerators must not influence, suggest or exert pressure on respondents when providing an answer to this question, as well as that they were under obligation to write down the response exactly as the person who provided the data declared him/herself on the ethnicity, including also a possibility of double declaration.
The enumerators were also not allowed to erase or correct any mistake made when writing down the answer to this question, but rather they had to annul the form and fill out a new one in the presence of the respondent.

7. Ethnicity – 2011 Census 3
The 2011 Census met the highest international criteria according to which each and every person were provided with the right to freely declare themselves on their ethnicity.
For the children younger than 15, the response was provided by the parents, adopters or caregivers.

8. Ethnicity– 2011 Census 4
The book Ethnicity shows, in the two tables, the data on the number and the territorial distribution of 21 ethnic communities in the Republic of Serbia each with more than two thousand members.
The data are presented in compliance with the Regulation on the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS).

9. Classification of ethnicity in 1948–2011 Censuses
Census 2011 – 45 modalities +
Other,
Did not declare,
Declared themselves in terms of regional affiliation and
Unknown

10. Continuation of cooperation 1
Cooperation with the National Council of the Roma National Minority continued after the 2009 Pilot Census.
Activities were as followed:
1. translation and verification of the questionnaires into Roma language - printed in the Multilingual collection of census forms that every enumerator carried out on the field;
2. mapping of the so-called "Roma settlements“;
3. selection of Roma coordinators and additional Roma enumerators with the task of helping the "regular" enumerator to carry out enumeration in the settlements in which the Roma live the most;

11. Continuation of cooperation 2
4. SORS organized a selection of associate members of the Census Commission in all municipalities inhabited by national minorities; in many municipalities, the Roma were associated members of the census commissions monitoring the course of the census
5. The National Council of the Roma minorities made advertising spots and broadcast them
6. The census was promoted in Roma TV shows and in Roma newspapers, all in cooperation with the National Council
7. SORS prepared flyers in Roma language, distributed it and participated in meetings organized by Roma organizations during which we promoted the census among young Roma women and explained why it is important that everyone be enumerated and declared as Roma

12. Continuation of cooperation 3
All activities related to the promotion of the census and the national declaration of the Roma had to be completed before the beginning of the census, in accordance with the Law on Census, so the census would not affect the citizens.
The result of all this is that in the 2011 Census the larger number of citizens have declared themselves as Roma.
Although the Roma consider that there are much bigger number of them, it is evident that many of them declared themselves as a member of other national communities, above all as Serbs.

13. Roma population in Serbia
According to the Census results, in 2002 there were persons, and persons in 2011 declared themselves as Roma. Share of Roma population were 1.44% in 2002, and 2.05% in
The average age of the Roma people is about 28 years, which makes them considerably younger when related to the total Serbian population that is aged 42.2 on average.
Observed by sex, among the population of Roma ethnicity the share of males is larger (51%) than the share of females (49%) related to the total population that is opposite.

14. Changes in the total number of Roma people by regions, Censuses1 2002 and 2011 
1 Censuses were not conducted in the territory of AP Kosovo and Metohija because there were no conditions for conducting them.

15. Data on Roma population
Given that Roma consist around 2% of the total population, that the ethnicity of a person is not recorded in majority of the administrative sources of data and that the coverage of Roma population by sample-based surveys is very small, UNICEF has decided to raise up the importance of the collecting data on Roma population.
Surveys were conducted by the SORS with the technical and financial support from UNICEF.

16. Thank you for your attention!
Dragana Djokovic-Papic, Head of Division
Division for Social Indicators, Justice and Gender statistics
Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia