1970 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Information on the data collection and processing (1977)
I. THE COMPREHENSIVE REWIEV OF THE DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING - 1. The prepatory activities of the census
Hereupon, the drawing up of the recommendations as well as the completing of the former propositions have taken place in a number of working groups, according to the experiences obtained, and complying with the new requirements. The new recommendations have been finally formulated on the 7** 1 session of the Working Group held in March 1 968, and were accepted on the 1 6** 1 session of the Conference of the European Statisticians in June 1968. The recommendations in question form a part of the European variant of the and 6^ section of the so-called World Recommendations dated of 1970 which had been accepted earlier by the Statistical Commission in 1966. .The European recommendations, with few exceptions, are in accordance with the World Recommendations, but they cover a larger field and are, in many respects, more datailed. a/ The European recommendations have been published by the UN ' in a volume in 1969. The fundamental (regarded as obligatory) and the complementary (facultative) topics have been published therein as well as the respective definitions and classifications to be used, and the tabulation programme encompassing the draft tables were included. The comparison between the full-scale and the representative programmes of the Hungarian census of 1970 as well as of the recommendations of the CMEA and the UN are clearly to be seen on the annexed table. From it is conspicuous that the subject-matter of the questions included to the Hungarian population census meets practically completely the claims of the recommendations formulated by the CMEA, and largely to the programme of the United Nations. More important differences as to the latter exist in the following respects: The problem of the citizenship has proven, on account of the small number of foreign citizens, practically negligible in this case. A separate question concerning the nationality was unnecessary, since the appartenance to the nationality can he approached in a more suitable manner, by means of information concerning the mother tongue. - Similarly negligible has proven - by the way, in 197 0 at first time - the question referring to the illiteracy, on account of the insignificantly small number of the illiterates. The mental and physical deficiencies are also figuring among the complementary questions of the recommendations formulated by the UN. The answer to the question is however, both from conceptual and from emotional point of view, problematic, since the doubtfulness of a sincere acknowlegdement would perhaps result in the inaccuracy of the data. Therefore, the question should be included to the survey material of special sanitary registrations. The survey of the incomes takes place in Hungary within the frameworks of separate data collections as connected with the micro-censuses. The main resources of the cost of living is a fundamental question included to the recommendations of the United Nations. In most cases, they may be reasoned out on the basis of the occupational data collected in details. a/ Statistical Commission and European Economic Commission of the UN. Conference of European Statisticians. Statistical Standards and Studies, no. 13. European recommendations as to the censuses of 1970. Regional variant of the 5 t h-6 t h part of the World Recommendations of 1970. UN. New York, 1969.
