In the year 2011, the general census of the Lithuanian population and housing was carried out in the traditional way, which required the help of 6 thousand people hired as information collectors. Such a census required significant financial and time costs. To use state funds efficiently, the Department of Statistics of Lithuania decided to modernize this process and use new IT solutions implemented by the company Novian Systems.
Situation
The population of the country, their demographic, social and economic characteristics, distribution in residential areas, and administrative-territorial units are constantly changing. The number of dwellings and their quality is also changing. Therefore, this data is constantly updated through population and housing censuses.
Problem
Although the main indicators required for the census are collected, stored, and updated in state registers and information systems, population and housing censuses were still conducted by census staff (information collectors) visiting dwellings and filling in census questionnaires, and later compiling and processing that data. This method takes a long time and requires a lot of resources and costs.
Solution
The new software was developed, and the modernized census data subsystem of the integrated statistical information system allowed to carry out population and housing censuses based on administrative data for both the pilot 2019 and the 2021 census, using data from 19 main state registers and information systems.
The developed and implemented tools allows to receive and combine administrative data from different data sources, to compile statistical indicators operatively, and to publish them in the electronic space. These indicators are provided to the Lithuanian Official Statistics Portal, data cubes required by the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), and other users of census information.
Result
Using a new census method, the 2021 general census of the Lithuanian population was carried out by no more than only 5 professionals instead of 6 thousand information collectors as previously. The implemented improvements allowed to receive and combine administrative data from different data sources, to promptly prepare census statistics, and to publish the obtained summary census information in the electronic space.
