Radical
Statistics
Social Attitudes to the Census
Actitudes y representaciones sociales de la población de la Comunidad de Madrid en relación con los Censos de Población y Vivienda de 1991
(Social attitudes in Madrid towards the population and housing census of 1991)
Angel De Lucas
Review by Ludi Simpson
In Britain the 1991 Census ‘captured’ 98% of the population. But the 2% missed were, many individuals think, concentrated among people who are isolated from official life. Official estimates propose that fully 20% of men in their twenties were missed across all British cities. Those excluded statistically may be the same people who are most likely to be excluded socially. Indeed those who cannot survive by the rules of the government may feel it necessary to exclude themselves from official enquiries. At the time of the 1991 Census in Britain, campaigns against the poll tax had given a precedent to wilfully go absent from an official numbering of the people.
However these statements about the nature of those missed from a census are simply plausible hypotheses. The intensive interview survey that followed the census in Britain identified in its sample areas, only a fifth of those missed by the census itself. The likely concentration of the missed people in certain areas and the lack of hard knowledge about this causes problems for census users (described in Radical Statistics 55). There have been no anthropological studies of people’s behaviour towards the census collection effort, and no contemporary attitude surveys about the census. In Britain, scientific studies of attitudes to the census are limited to tests of alternative question wording.
This book from Spain is one of a handful world-wide that have ever reported an intensive post census qualitative study. Manuel de la Puente reported anthropological studies at the time of the 1990 US Census, and gave detailed recommendations to improve census procedures and documents, and training of census staff. The prime message of the Madrid study is that a statistical office needs to understand the political climate in order to undertake a successful census; equally, a census is inevitably a part of the political climate: it should be promoted publicly as part of the democratic process, if it is to gain acceptance.
Angel de Lucas reports on a series of focus groups carried out shortly after the census collection in March 1991; his analysis of the scripts of these focus groups was designed to describe how the political ideologies of different social groups informed their attitude to the census collection. The study was carried out in the Madrid region, and funded by the regional government, the Comunidad de Madrid.
Franco’s death in 1975 heralded the end of nearly forty years of fascism in Spain; a new constitution and minor elections had been achieved by the time of the 1981 census - which sparked little debate. In the first post-Franco national elections, the Partido Socialista (PSOE) was elected in 1982. Many people felt then that collective change through government policies would bring them personal benefit. But by the end of the eighties, the Government was generally seen as inefficient, corrupt and self-interested. For many hope was replaced by disillusionment, cynicism, and individualist motivations, all of which found expression in attitudes to the 1991 Census. The PSOE were voted out in 1995, in favour of the more conservative Partido Popular.
The Census of 1991 asked eleven questions on housing which were virtually unchanged from 1981 and 1971: floor-space, facilities such as heating, telephone, and hot water, number of rooms, and whether the house was a main and permanent home. The questions asked of each person in the house were also the same as in 1981 and 1971, including education, work, marital status, year of marriage, and live births to each woman. As before, the data were to be secret with legal protection; only aggregate counts would be released even within government. The only significant difference in the census procedure was a new booklet format, much as is used in Britain.
Yet in public debate the census was criticised in a way that did not happen a decade earlier, and Angel de Lucas argues would not have been possible then. The Census was accused of being invasive and politically motivated. The growth of consumer-oriented middle classes, the antagonistic mood of much of Spain towards its government, and the coinciding financial crisis of the government, all contributed. In 1990, the Operación Catastrál (property registration) was abandoned after widespread protest and lack of co-operation. In the months before the Census, the Partido Popular and others used the media to raise doubts about the purpose and confidentiality of the census data that were to be collected.
In the post-census study, each of seven focus groups was homogeneous socially, labelled: New urban middle classes, Students of the new urban middle classes, Urban conservative petty bourgeois, Modern professionals and executives, Industrial workers, Wives of industrial workers, and Rural petty bourgeois.
Every one in these groups expected that either the individual census records or the aggregate results of the census would be used to target people or areas for higher taxation. Most felt that they personally would suffer from such use, as the government would find ways of taxing more heavily their existing property, or property they aspired to own. The industrial workers, recently displaced to suburbs from the centre of Madrid, were the only group to unanimously support the census. They saw it as a means of achieving a geographical redistribution of resources more fairly, towards their own areas that had few public services. They and the rural group felt the census might be used to uncover pockets of tax fraud that they expected could be found in other groups, and were happy that it should be so used.
There was no expectation that the state would keep the census secret, and no great worry at this. The urban middle classes were most worried that neighbours or concierges could become involved in the collection and see personal details that they regarded as intimate. The rural group complained that the census was completed in public at village halls, but acknowledged that the information was already common knowledge in their communities. They were more worried that personal electronic records would end up in commercial hands, and used against their personal interests.
However, the objections about privacy were often exaggerated - to the extent of naming questions that were not asked - insisting for example that the question on births had asked about abortions. The census was associated with a prying government that according to one group would soon ask for frequency of intercourse!
The census was in this sense being used as a scapegoat for dissatisfaction with government. Time and again those who objected to the census insisted it was wholly different in content from previous decades, when in fact the only major difference was in its format.
The biggest resistance to the census came from the conservative petty bourgeois, a label used for a group from professional managerial backgrounds, aged 50-55. The author argues that these feared they had most to lose from democracy generally, and in particular from the rumoured use of the census to set taxation. Although the objections were couched in terms of invasions of privacy, they centred on the housing schedule which recorded details of the property and facilities within it. Discussion in the group perceived the PSOE government as abusive and perverse, and themselves as overtaxed. The main tendency within the group viewed the census as necessary, but also claimed that ‘there is no need to give any detail that does not benefit you’.
Other groups mistook the classification of ‘principal house of residence’ to be an admission that they also had a second house, that would be taxed or taken away. The answers to housing questions generally were likely to be most suspect.
The author concluded that census quality was threatened by four social attitudes, each of which reflected a crisis in democratic values. First, the legal protection of the census was disbelieved; second, the census was seen as an instrument of fiscal control that would be used by the government to address its own budgetary crisis; third, the democratic sentiment was weak - for many democracy had come to mean that you could now do what you want, including providing only information which was to the individual’s benefit; fourth, the administration responded to public concern only through official channels, not directly in the popular media.
The author’s personal interpretation is inevitably an integral part of a report from focus groups. The Director of Statistics at the Comunidad de Madrid acknowledges this departure from formal presentation of statistics in his introduction, but supports the publication as ‘returning to society the information which was asked of it’. The transcripts are available to other investigators to pursue other interpretations. It is indeed an unusual report from a statistical office.
What are the lessons for other counties? One should not define social exclusion too narrowly when relating it to official enquiries: the rich and powerful have plenty to hide from government scrutiny, and in some circumstances a very large proportion of people fear the consequences of truthful answers to official enquiries.
Inclusion in a census is the result not only of good design and fieldwork, but also of ideological acceptance. This is partly a result of good census public relations but also of positive attitudes to government that are formed independently of the census.
A qualitative study like this one highlights weaknesses in the collection and quality of statistical data; these can be acknowledged and addressed either in improved procedures or in more sensitive use of statistical reports. Britain should do something similar as part of its preparation for the 2001 Census.
REFERENCES
Angel de Lucas (1992) Actitudes y representaciones sociales de la población de la Comunidad de Madrid en relación con los Censos de Población y Vivienda de 1991 (Social attitudes in Madrid towards the population and housing census of 1991), published by the Comunidad de Madrid, Consejería de Economía Departamento de Estadística, Calle Principe de Vergara 132, 28002 Madrid, Spain
Manuel de la Puente (1993) Why are people missed or erroneously included by the Census: a summary of findings from ethnographic coverage reports, pages 29-66 in ‘Proceedings of the 1993 research conference on undercounted ethnic populations’, US Dept of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
Ludi Simpson
Cathie Marsh
Centre for Census and Survey Research,
University of
Manchester
Tel: Mon, Thur,
Fri, +44(0) 1274-642838
E-mail:
ludi@man.ac.uk
