1. CROATIAN CENSUS 2011 - EXPERIENCES
Damir Plesac,
Dubravka Rogić-Hadžalić,
Budapest, June 2017

2. 2011 CENSUS Traditional census (total coverage)
Reference date: midnight,
Census duration: 4 weeks (1st.-28th of april)
Number of participants: more then :
Enumerators / Enumeration areas
1.950 Supervisors
193 Instructors
45 Coordinators
147 Members of the County Census Commissions
965 Members of the Census committees of branch offices in
towns and municipalities
760 Head of the census centers
321 PES participants
~ 400 Processing workers
Informacije o Popisu 2011.

3. ORGANIZATION Within CBS DG Census Manager Census Board (16 members)
7 Working groups:
Census law and financing
Methodology
IT processing
Technical Documentation
Dissemination & Promotional Activities
Organization and Logistics
PES

4. PLAN ACTIVITIES – MS PROJECT
Very good formal structure of organization
Excellent connectivity over share point portal
An excellent overview of all activities within the Census with MS project
Good working atmosphere

5. THE CENSUS QUESTIONNAIRES
The 2011 Census is based on the traditional method - interview method.
Two basic questionnaires were used: PERSONAL QUESTIONNAIRE (43 questions) and QUESTIONNAIRE FOR HOUSEHOLDS (6 questions and the list of household members) and HOUSING UNITS (15 questions) - in A3 format for scanning.
The enumerators had the enumerator's book to register all the census units and all the addresses in the enumeration area.

6. CENSUS TOPICS In accordance with:
Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council
Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing
All the “core topics” and a lot of “non-core topics” from the Recommendations were included in the 2011 Census

7. HIRING PROCESS AND TRAINING OF CENSUS PERSONNEL
More than field workers + CBS workers
First target: Unemployed
Students were the best solution, but they could not be absent from Universities for such a long time + social moment (unemployed)
After 5 days of education the applicants were tested

8. HIRING PROCESS AND TRAINING OF CENSUS PERSONNEL
Croatian Employment Office
Decided that enumerators and
controllers are employees
Decided to deny them their
unemployment benefits
Some of them simply quit

9. HIRING PROCESS AND TRAINING OF CENSUS PERSONNEL
Timing for hiring enumerators and controllers
OCR applications had to come in and then processed and sent back together with the results
It took time, so usually workers were appointed on Friday to start education on Monday
applications = a lot of complaints
Complaints: mail, fax, post, through Government, President, Ombudsman
Some might be right  not always time to react

10. EXPANDED CENSUS TO 4 WEEKS
Positive side
Savings on training (less enumerators, less controllers)
Learning by doing
Enough time for enumeration
Extra week for check-ups and controls
Negative side
Lost their willingness and necessary concentration
More workload on enumerators (Saturdays and Sundays included)

11. OCR DATA CAPTURE OCR and all connected work last long
Problems with bad handwriting which brought difficulties in OCR
Lots of staff engaged
costly

12. Clear cartographic overview - Enumerators had received photographs of census areas over which data were entered, not sketches as in past censuses:
Informacije o Popisu 2011.

13. PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES
Well designed and planned (but due to money savings little done) into 3 phases:
introductory phase (prior the 2011 Census) - Determined goals of promotion, defined visual identity of Census 2011, Census promotion at CBS website, a specialized brochure with basic facts on Census 2011created, specialized brochure aimed at younger population created, promotion through specialized radio shows in quiz form on basic facts on Census
Intensive phase (March, April 2011) - organization of the press conference, TV and radio spot broadcasting, newspapers advertising, updating Internet and Intranet CBS sites on Census 2011 progress, specialized radio and TV broadcast on Census 2011, leaflets, brochures and posters distribution billboard and city lights advertising, buying media space covering national and regional area
Clearing phase (May) - press conference presenting final data, participating in different TV and radio shows

14. GOOD EXPERIENCE
Coordinators and deputies were provided with notebooks with mail & Internet + GSM phones:
Easy distribution of additional materials
Easy daily communication
Problems were solved on line
Reporting to HQ in Zagreb on
Daily basis

15. GOOD VISUAL PRESENTATION
Posters
Census cases
pens

16. CALL CENTER Thousands of calls Thousands of mails
Every day 8 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Typical answers answered immediately, rest forwarded to experts

17. QUESTIONNAIRES IN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS OF NATIONAL MINORITIES AND IN ENGLISH
Questionnaires in languages and scripts of national minorities and in English distributed both in paper and electronic form
Could be printed on demand in Enumeration centers
Could be downloaded from web page

18. MATERIALS - more then 40 different forms

19. Keep good things, change and improve bad
CONCLUSION
Keep good things, change and improve bad