2021 is the year of the Population and Housing Census, which will differ from the previous years of the census in that the interviewers of the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB) will not visit in person the population for interviews and individuals will not have to fill in electronic questionnaires.
The census enumerates all the population and housing of a given country and collects information on their characteristics. In 2021, the census will take place in Latvia for the eleventh time since 1920, when the first census was organized in the independent Republic of Latvia and it was the third after the restoration of the independence of Latvia.
This year, the CSB will obtain all the necessary information from administrative data registers, for example, the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, the State Revenue Service, the State Social Insurance Agency and other state information systems, which provide information on both residents and their housing. Cooperation with other institutions is very important for a successful register-based census. Currently, the census database contains data from more than 40 different registers.
In 2020, when the on-the-spot interviewers were completely stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the decision to organize the Population and Housing Census using only administrative data proved to be the right one. Currently, a similar solution is being sought by countries that had planned to conduct the Population and Housing Census 2021 in the traditional way. Latvia has had time to prepare, to develop a methodology for preparing indicators, to work on improving the quality of administrative data.
The use of administrative data will allow for publication of data in a timely manner; demographic, family, household and housing related data will be published gradually by the end of 2021, but data on education and economic activity of the population - in the 2nd quarter of 2022.
Media requests:
Communication Section
E-mail: media@csb.gov.lv
Phone.: +371 67366989, +371 27880666
More information on data:
Sigita Šulca
Social Statistics Methodology Section
E-mail: Sigita.Sulca@csb.gov.lv
Phone: +371 67366806