Census 2021

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has written to the 3 census offices (ONS, NRS and NISRA) as part of its ongoing assessment into how the UK Censuses are meeting the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics. t.co/hdHKRZWvPB

twitter.com/mbmpolicy/status/1304404610166255618?s=19

In today’s correspondence with ONS, OSR state it is "essential" that ONS consider the concerns raised by data users during its testing and research on the sex q. guidance, and consider the impact of data quality on sub-groups analysis. t.co/Rkf1Q7T6Iv t.co/f8vNTI6wPs

Think there is still work to do on the guidance being issued and it's an obvious rebuke of the previous secrecy and lack of transparency.

This isn’t about the census but on a related area, of protocols for standardised government data collection:
The premise of website is a good idea- design-system.service.gov.uk/get-started/
it seems to offer free user-tested advice and code for government departments to use when they’re building information collection webpages for the public to use in the gov.uk domain. So far so good.

They offer guidance on how to code to collect information around various personal information aspects such as postcode, name, and a couple of protected characteristics including ethnicity, but specifically say they can NOT make recommendations around sex and gender. Now why would that be?

See this list- look for the heading ‘Patterns’ to see what I mean: design-system.service.gov.uk/community/propose-a-content-change-using-github/#top

And yet this important question of resolving how to ask about sex and gender doesn’t appear in their backlog list of what they’re going to be working on? design-system.service.gov.uk/community/backlog/
Never mind asking about any of the other protected characteristics..

On the bright side, they seek for feedback about successful ways to survey. I would have some feedback about how to make it likely that women can respond (and what puts women off) we have threads on various aspects of surveys and data collection discussing this on FWR.

This government page on sex and gender then says (and remember it’s talking internally to other government officials):

More research is needed on the best way to ask for gender. If you ask users for their gender as part of your service, get in touch to share your user research findings.

Note despite saying there isn’t enough research- which would generally indicate need for caution- here the Government instructions to colleagues are heavily politicised and in a way which we know will compromise data collection:

They say: If you do need to ask, use ‘sex’ when you need biological data ( for example, if you’re providing a medical service ). In all other cases, use ‘ gender ’.

design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/gender-or-sex/

In all other cases use gender?! Why? What about non medical structural disadvantage to women that gets lost when you no longer identify women as a sex category?

For comparison see their detailed instructions re ethnicity surveying design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/ethnic-group/#top

Maybe any MNers who know about data collection or coding can propose a change to suggest ideas about how they should ask about this pattern around sex and gender via these links:

design-system.service.gov.uk/community/propose-a-content-change-using-github/

design-system.service.gov.uk/community/propose-a-component-or-pattern/

Note this is via GitHub which requires a name and email address.

You can also write to the officials who run this service here
design-system.service.gov.uk/get-in-touch/

It would be great if government were able to recommend a non-sexist, non-politically biased, non-homophobic, non-undermining-of-safeguarding, reality-based and equality-promoting way of collecting data that worked for everyone, women and trans identifying people. It would go some way to helping to tackle regulatory capture if the stats are not gender-based.

I’d be really interested to see what MNers who know about this area think.

Really important for us to keep discussing this. As loudly as possible and writing to MPs. Publicly funded, public statistics belong to us all, the public. They are used to inform the provision of services for everyone. Nobody asked us before they erased sex. It’s totally unacceptable.

There are a few previous threads on this including these - academics wrote a joint letter objecting to these changes:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3769088-sunday-times-sex-question-catapults-census-into-trans-war

Conservative Political blogs have criticised it:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3802181-Caroline-ffiske-Gender-and-a-government-that-s-lost-its-census?msgid=93321673#93321673

This article by Prof Alice sullivan explains what the census authorities are planning and what the issues with it are. It's in a peer reviewed academic journal but as a non expert I found it a really clearly written article, and she talks about the way she has been treated for raising this (being no platformed).

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13645579.2020.1768346

I wonder if there has been any recognition that there is only so far you can go with gender because of its fluidity. Sex is still vital, biology really does matter

Stonewall were present at a meeting with the ONS in June I think it was to scouts the questions on sex and gender (they mean gender identity).

I think it was on the what did they know website...would love to see the meeting minutes on that one.

Quote:

For 2021, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) proposes to retain the mandatory sex question as asked in the 2011 Census and which has been asked in every census since 1801. In the 2021 Census form there will be a sentence in the sex question to inform respondents that there is also a later question on gender. Sex is a core demographic variable, of fundamental importance for a range of census users providing vital information for national and local population statistics.

The sex question on the census will be mandatory, so will need to be answered by all. However, for those whose gender is different from their sex registered at birth, who may find the question difficult to answer, the answer they provide does not need to be the same as their birth certificate.

www.ons.gov.uk/census/censustransformationprogramme/questiondevelopment/genderidentity/guidanceforquestionsonsexgenderidentityandsexualorientationforthe2019censusrehearsalforthe2021census

I feel a bit bad as I actually took part in the test census and actually didn't notice the foot note about being allowed to state your sex was what you identified.

I think most people will just answer in a straightfoward way, so it is more whether there are enough of us to totally f*ck that question by answering something nonsensical.

And I suspect even though we have seen a very recent U turn (tories worried about future voters) I doubt that the number of gender critical census takers will make much of a blip.

If only more people in the mainstream would just stand up and say enough is enough. Nobody has to conform to gender stereotypes, lets start abolishing them, but biological reality is biological reality.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/census-fears-over-gender-identity-rmx0gmzxq?fbclid=IwAR25LOW95NozrWmR1550uT0XZIdQoQyMQu2GAcbUuc8CKdFVvV57i38A9NI

This is an old Times Article Dec 2019 with lots of signatures. Just a couple of paragraphs before the sigs but might be of interest.

So true- great analogy Diana

I don't know how they can think it won't be a statistical fuck up given the general public's penchant for mischief. I recall one year a ton of people stated Jedi as their religion.

“It's just seems that they have gone ahead despite any number of people pointing out the statistical problems (which you think they would worry about) as well as the implications for allowing people to choose their sex (even though most people wont be aware of this).”

I truly don’t understand this. The only thing I can think is that they believe numbers will be so small it won’t fuck things up too much, and that they consider that worthwhile given the fuss that will ensue if they decide on a fact-based question.

But we (and any sensible person) can see what a slippery slope that is.

And it is, of course, the slipperiest because it is giving in to a tiny proportion of people with very loud voices who don’t remotely care about the negative effect on others.

I've been thinking about the analogy with religious belief. It's like being asked "is your eternal soul: saved; damned; prefer not to say."

You can't tick "prefer not to say" when your actual response is "don't be bloody daft, there's no such thing."

I have no recollection of ever filling in a census. If they are done every 10 years and you have to be 18+ then this must be my third. I've got a complete blank on it though. Did they used to be posted out? Is a hard copy rather than online still an option?

Sorry yes - I think the recent one was about requesting a paper census.

It's just seems that they have gone ahead despite any number of people pointing out the statistical problems (which you think they would worry about) as well as the implications for allowing people to choose their sex (even though most people wont be aware of this).

I think short of some sort of fund raising to start legal action it is done and dusted.

But maybe even at this late stage we should be writing to our MPs pointing out how flawed the census will be.

And this one has links to a good article written by 3 women lawyers www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3947618-Domino-effects-the-implications-of-the-framing-the-sex-question-in-the-2021-census

This is a list of all the threads about the census (and a few stray items)

www.mumsnet.com/SearchArch?mustmatch=Census&dontmatch=&nickname=&src_displ_option=s_t_d_t&fromDate=01%2F01%2F19&toDate=18%2F08%2F20&topicmode=chs&chosentops=5365

There are loads of threads about this.

they will include a question about sex which most people will answer without thinking but in fact there is a footnote saying you can answer this on how you "identify".

There will be a supplement question about gender.

Its a dog's dinner and will invalidate any data relating to crime, health, etc., etc., from 2021 onwards.

Cant remeber exactly but slightly different in Scotland.

@Letmegetthisrightasawoman not certain but when you look at why the census is done, they will have to ask sex as stillathing points out maternity is just one provision but it isn't just about the questions we need to know now, it's about the next 10 years. Gender needs to be known about (I'm guessing here) because of clinical needs as just one example. Also, because of transgender protected characteristic. They will also be making amendments so that at the census after, they will be able to track changes. My guess, nothing more

Good point. And lots of people
Might go along with it without realising the wider context and consequences.

I think the huge worry is that they will conflate the gender and sex questions.

Perhaps by asking for sex but allowing people to self identify as whichever sex they choose. This renders the data collected in this field completely meaningless.

If they have a question about identifying as trans they need to provide the option to state that you don't believe. Like with religioun.

An obvious consequence could be if that transmen and non binary identified females are not recorded as female, there might not be enough future maternity provision, as the age demographics for trans identities are very different depending (ironically) on birth sex