Census Fieldwork in the UK: The Bedrock for a Decade of Social Analysis

Abstract

Interviews with fieldworkers from the UK 2001 Census give voice to a unique, grounded view of the operational quality of census-taking. While the overall response to the census has been estimated at 94%, enumerators and their managers explain why differential undercount between social and geographical groups remained a problem. Fieldworkers subjected the census to criticism, from form design and quality checks to address-listing and management. Postal return of census forms caused unexpected difficulties for field staff and expense for the census offices. The subcontracting of various census operations and inflexible operational procedures made it difficult to find and implement timely solutions to problems that arose. A relatively high proportion of missing and inconsistent responses was expected by experienced fieldworkers and put extra burden on the editing and imputation procedures.