Census 2021

[NoXion]

I've had my third letter today. I have no political or philosophical objections to the notion of a census, I'm just a lazy and/or forgetful cunt.

I am however distinctly unimpressed with the chosen tone of engagement. "We have noticed you haven't filled in the census yet. Do it now or we'll smack you with a fine worth a grand". This paraphrased statement was in bold near the top of the letter. Leading with threats, what fucking PR genius thought that shit up? A £10 thank-you to all participants would cost less than 680 million quid, but even some paltry bullshit like a raffle or some vouchers would be better received than legalistic growling.

There's no good justification for waving the stick around. It's not like anyone's gonna die if I don't fill it in as soon as it drops on my doorstep. The information is going to have the same utility if I fill it in later.

 

[teuchter]

The information is going to have the same utility if I fill it in later.

Not entirely, if the idea is to capture everyone at the same point in time and your memory is ropey.

 

[brogdale]

I've had my third letter today. I have no political or philosophical objections to the notion of a census, I'm just a lazy and/or forgetful cunt.

I am however distinctly unimpressed with the chosen tone of engagement. "We have noticed you haven't filled in the census yet. Do it now or we'll smack you with a fine worth a grand". This paraphrased statement was in bold near the top of the letter. Leading with threats, what fucking PR genius thought that shit up? A £10 thank-you to all participants would cost less than 680 million quid, but even some paltry bullshit like a raffle or some vouchers would be better received than legalistic growling.

There's no good justification for waving the stick around. It's not like anyone's gonna die if I don't fill it in as soon as it drops on my doorstep. The information is going to have the same utility if I fill it in later.

Type of thing...

 

[NoXion]

Not entirely, if the idea is to capture everyone at the same point in time and your memory is ropey.

I'm not going to forget personal info like my age and my height, and I can consult my own records, count the number of rooms, or otherwise do something to confirm whatever trivia they ask without relying on my faulty memory.

 

[teuchter]

I'm not going to forget personal info like my age and my height, and I can consult my own records, count the number of rooms, or otherwise do something to confirm whatever trivia they ask without relying on my faulty memory.

There are things like the question about how you would describe your level of health that are probably influenced by things like the day of the week or the weather at the time the question is asked.

 

[NoXion]

Type of thing...

View attachment 261273

As if anarchist societies would never do such things. Sure, they'd do some of it less often, and they might call it something else when they do it, which could be helpful for maintaining the social narrative, but stuff like indoctrination will still be going on in whatever lessons kids get. Every society attempts to pass on certain values to their children.

 

[NoXion]

There are things like the question about how you would describe your level of health that are probably influenced by things like the day of the week or the weather at the time the question is asked.

That's a stupid census question if it's so time-dependent. Moods change all the time.

 

[Orang Utan]

That's a stupid census question if it's so time-dependent. Moods change all the time.

It is a stupid question but you’re supposed to answer in general rather than right now

 

[teuchter]

That's a stupid census question if it's so time-dependent. Moods change all the time.

It's one less confounding factor you have to worry about, if you can get everyone to answer it at the same time.

 

[NoXion]

It is a stupid question but you’re supposed to answer in general rather than right now

People are going to answer it like that anyway. The census designers are incompetents if they don't take such things into account.

 

[NoXion]

It's one less confounding factor you have to worry about, if you can get everyone to answer it at the same time.

Which is logistically impossible, so it's an effort doomed to failure.

 

[teuchter]

Which is logistically impossible, so it's an effort doomed to failure.

If you can get everyone to answer within a two week period, rather than within a 5 year period or whatever it would be if they didn't shake a stick at people like you, that's still an improvement.

 

[miss direct]

We've had a letter asking us to finish filling it in.

I'm in a shared house and got a code and did my own bit. I dont want to deal with the other members of the house.

Are we going to get a knock on the door soon?

 

[Raheem]

I'd assume if you've done your bit you haven't committed an offence and won't get fined.

 

[rutabowa]

We've had a letter asking us to finish filling it in.

I'm in a shared house and got a code and did my own bit. I dont want to deal with the other members of the house.

Are we going to get a knock on the door soon?

Someone does still have to fill in the census for the house; the individual ones are for personal information, the household one is what gets the address taken off the list.

 

[belboid]

Someone does still have to fill in the census for the house; the individual ones are for personal information, the household one is what gets the address taken off the list.

Not until someone hits the submit button tho

 

[rutabowa]

Yes, you have to submit it!

 

[miss direct]

Someone does still have to fill in the census for the house; the individual ones are for personal information, the household one is what gets the address taken off the list.

How does that work though in shared houses when two people refuse to engage?

 

[rutabowa]

How does that work though in shared houses when two people refuse to engage?

You can just fill in the general data for the house and dummy data for the people who wont do it

 

[kenny g]

Ordered a separate code. Arrived in the post. Have now ordered a paper census as a separate member of the household as wouldn't want to do online. Apparently it takes five days to arrive in the post. Surprised it is so unclear how you can order a separate paper form and the rest of the family can fill theirs in online and submit...

 

[NoXion]

Finally remembered to fill in my census this morning, and I note that the black helicopters have yet to swoop down from the sky and seize me.

 

[rutabowa]

The aim isn't to send in the helicoptors, it is to get people to complete the census! So thank you.

Apparently the whole operation has been massively successful as far as getting returns in this time round, ie a higher percentage of household have returned than ever before.

 

[kabbes]

On this thread, we had a long-ranging discussion about how categories for things like ethnicity and gender are constructed. In particular, we discussed why this matters. Well, I have recently come across something that I think provides valuable insight into why it matters.

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10052610/1/Phoenix_82-Article%20Text-93-1-10-20171204.pdf

I would note that this paper is neither in favour nor against the construction of categories within censuses. It points out the nature of the power relations in play and how these can support the status quo. It also, however, discusses how they can provide momentum for the recognition of previously unrecognised selves and ways of being. In that latter regard, however, the last paragraph I have quoted below points out that any such challenge to power relies on categories being actively contested. I would suggest that this includes not simply taking the questions on the census as being appropriate and useful just because the state has deemed them to be so.

Taking key segments from the section where the authors specifically discuss censuses:

This third and final example... examines the ways in which the UK and US Censuses have been revised and analysed to consider how census categorisations illuminate everyday politics of representation. Contestation about representation matters because of its meanings for social positioning and, hence, what constitutes a ‘liveable life’*. In recent decades, contestation about the categories enumerated in the UK and US Censuses has served to highlight the ways in which social categories and representations are socially constructed and that there are sociopolitical consequences to the categorisations chosen. It is apparent, for example, that our societal landscape is structured on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, language, age, disabilities, nationality, religion etc. and that the social representations of people in census categories change as social understandings does. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the ways in which racialised and ethnicised categories are represented. For example, in both the UK and the USA, the introduction of questions allowing the enumeration of a ‘mixed ethnicity’ category generated controversy (Owen, 2007, 2012).

*My note here: the authors have already explained that they are using the concept of "liveable life" developed by Judith Butler, referring to how some lives are recognised as "liveable" and others "unbearable", affecting the ways in one is permitted to be within society.

...

The debate about racialised categorisation matters in the context of how the Census is used. On the one hand, as administrative data, census categories are used to generate policies about different groups in the population and create the official language and taxonomy of race. The categories enumerated have been pre-judged to warrant attention. In terms of racialisation, the fear of those from minoritised ethnic groups is that enumeration will be used as an instrument of control, rather than for beneficent allocation of resources. Enumeration is, therefore, always contested. On the other hand, census categories such as ‘mixed ethnicity’ have arisen because of insider struggle for recognition of mixity. The reification of the category and the availability of demographic data on those in mixed categories can, therefore, also contribute to the burgeoning of mixed identities and so to the further contestation about the naming of the categories as well as encouraging claims for political representation. The names of the categories constructed thus combine beliefs and practices that classify the population and shape the racial order. The cognitive polyphasia that is produced through the institutional and social practices the categories are rendered meaningful. These then help determine who belongs to each category and its status in relation to other groups.

... The authors then discuss the specific ways in which the categorisations have changed over time in different countries before going on to conclude...

The point here is that census questions are not innocent, timeless or decontextualized. The questions change over time and are different in different places (as discussed above) for sociopolitical reasons. They help to illuminate the ways in which everyday social representations of racialisation and ethnicisation are conflictual and polyphasic in many societies. Contestations over identity representations fuel changes in census questions and lead to further contestation and identity change. While censuses are designed to enumerate populations in the service of social policy and population control, the dynamism and contradictory nature of categorisations that would be expected from intersectionality and positioning theories means that minoritised ethnic groups are able to use census demographic data to argue for changes in social arrangements and identity change. The contestation thus entails contradictory possibilities and, as in the case of claims to ‘mixed’ identities also allows claims to ‘liveable lives’ (Butler, 2004).

The UK and US decennial Censuses provides important examples of the creative ways in which people use social representations, created in this case through state practices, to challenge and resist practices that limit social relationships and co-constructions of identity in their everyday lives. ... Social representations can, therefore, function as strategies that enable resistance to normative representations and protect people’s sense of self. Moscovici (1998, p.377) suggested that, ‘in the process of formation of a representation there is always both conflict and cooperation’. In critically re-evaluating social representations theory, it is important to recognise that anchoring and objectification may not operate in ways that produce settled representations. Instead, censuses (and monitoring surveys) are continually contested because social representations are continually in flux. The act of re-presenting the social world carries with it the possibility for critique, resistance and transgression.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Anyone been asked to do the census coverage survey? Received a leaflet earlier in the week and the census person came round earlier. Not too many questions - and oddly they asked my ethnicity but not other protected characteristics like disability, etc. The census proper asked for all of these if I remember rightly.

Census 2021

census.gov.uk

 

[Pickman's model]

The aim isn't to send in the helicoptors, it is to get people to complete the census! So thank you.

Apparently the whole operation has been massively successful as far as getting returns in this time round, ie a higher percentage of household have returned than ever before.

All they need is a pandemic every ten years so people are super bored and will complete every similar survey in an unfulfilled quest for relief from ennui

 

[rutabowa]

All they need is a pandemic every ten years so people are super bored and will complete every similar survey in an unfulfilled quest for relief from ennui

I suspect the online thing has made a big difference. It is so much easier and quicker to complete, and the vast majority of people had access to do it like that which meant the people who did have access issues could have a lot of time devoted to helping them (if they wanted it, which a lot of people did).

 

[Orang Utan]

I suspect the online thing has made a big difference. It is so much easier and quicker to complete, and the vast majority of people had access to do it like that which meant the people who did have access issues could have a lot of time devoted to helping them (if they wanted it, which a lot of people did).

I only ended up doing 2 hour long interviews, despite spending a day a week on duty to help people. I suspect a lot of people didn’t cooperate

 

[rutabowa]

I only ended up doing 2 hour long interviews, despite spending a day a week on duty to help people. I suspect a lot of people didn’t cooperate

Well the figures for our area when I stopped were 90% target for returns, 94% actual.... and that was with a lot of paper returns still in post/yet to be processed. Very few people chose to phone I think though.

 

[PR1Berske]

Gender and sexual identity maps released.

Sexual orientation - Census Maps, ONS

Census maps is an interactive tool to explore Census 2021 data across England and Wales for different topics down to a neighbourhood level.

www.ons.gov.uk

Gender identity - Census Maps, ONS

Census maps is an interactive tool to explore Census 2021 data across England and Wales for different topics down to a neighbourhood level.

www.ons.gov.uk

 

[PR1Berske]

Education level interactive map released:

Census Maps - Census 2021 data interactive, ONS

Census maps is an interactive tool to explore Census 2021 data across England and Wales for different topics down to a neighbourhood level.

www.ons.gov.uk