census response rate under 75%

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Lots of comment on Twitter about why the response rate in Scotland is lower than it was in England/Wales/N Ireland last year. As someone who looks at old census returns every day of the week, this is very bad news for people 100 years in the future who want to investigate their family history.

Reluctance to complete census is not new, every census there are people who avoid being recorded for whatever reason. But not 25% of the population! 35% in Glasgow city haven't filled it in.

My take on what has gone wrong:

1. 10 years ago we were all watching terrestrial TV more, seeing the adverts. Now we're all streaming on netflix and not seeing the reminders.


2. Politicisation - older censuses asked things like "where were you born" which most of us can answer. Now it's all about how you define your national identity which is a woolly concept and linked to your politics.


3. Intrusive questions about sexual orientation and trans history.


4. General lack of trust in the government and doubts over what they are going to do with the information.


5. Difficulties getting hold of hard copies for people who don't do the census online.

That's surprised me.
The questions did seem intrusive. Maybe I'm old enough to be more compliant than average.
My guess is the younger you are the less likely you are to think of it as an important thing to do?

I think also that while previous censuses emphasised that it must be done ON THIS DATE!!!!, this time, we were asked to fill it out early, or, y'know, at some point after... easy to just forget about it. My mum also pointed out that if you filled it out early, some people would have died before the due date, so future people would be puzzled that Fred Bloggs had a death certificate dated the 16th, but still apparently alive on the 20th.

Looking at the areas it will be the lack of door knocking to remind people to do it. Nothing like a face to face interaction to get someone over the hump as it were.
I don't think it will be a political statement for the vast majority.

Yes the date thing was strange having been previously so focussed on who stays on the particular night of the census, to fill it in prior seemed rather to undermine the concept!

I do wonder what our descendants might think about it all

I would love to have a time machine to find out.

My census definitely referenced a specific date - I don’t recall which.

I should imagine it’ll turn tracing the family tree into a bit of a clusterfuck. My great grandad married my great grandad and had 2 girls, 1 boy - however 2 boys died before age 30 etc etc.

Yes there was a date, but you could fill it in ahead of time.

I filled it in but made everyone in my house female 🤷🏻‍♀️

My ancestors will be mighty confused...

Yep. @HirplesWithHaggis dd20 had no idea it was on, only opened letter and did it as I told her about it.
Is it because we’ve been inundated with bumph from the SG? All the references to Scotland, and Gaelic all over the form?

Greater poverty in Scotland so less ability to fill it in/ caring about it? Lack of trust in the SG?

Its another example of a massive waste of money and ideology affecting judgment, as it would have been so much more sensible just to use the UK census

It's a bit confusing as all the twitter warnings say every adult needs to complete but surely it's one per household. Or have they changed that?

No, it's one per household. Form sent to every house in Scotland.

Anecdotally, we were in a rented holiday home in Aviemore over the Easter break. Census form sat there addressed to the homeowner. Homeowner lived overseas, not in UK. Probably totally unaware that census was happening. Her and thousands of other owners of holiday properties all over the country. It's probably still sitting there, uncompleted.

Spotted a Scottish govt census person on my walk today trying desperately to get the household to complete it.....the ones I saw were elderly so makes sense about digital exclusion!

the ones I saw were elderly so makes sense about digital exclusion!

Surely someone must have realised this would be the case though! A telephone number to ring for a paper copy and help filling it in should have been really prominently displayed.
As I said before, they just didn't think it through 🤷🏼‍♀️

I was surprised at the level of detail. It asked about any work you did in the last week and then it asked what was your normal job. I got a bit stuck because I'm on a zero hour contract at the moment in a new job but didn't want to put that down as my 'job' because I normally do another type of work. But it felt wrong putting the address of my normal job because I wasn't working there at the moment. And asking for the school address and then the nationality/ethnicity question was a bit awkwardly worded.

The medical history was quite intrusive too. I bet many people would not have wanted to disclose the details of their medical and physical health.

It felt like it overstepped the mark a bit. I love family history and appreciate how valuable the Census is but I imagine many people would have found this intrusive and more akin to applying for a benefit.

But I guess that's all by the by if most people struggled to fill it in online. I got a paper copy myself.

@SayYouDontMind I don't remember questions about health🤔

I agree about the work one. DS is a student, he's not working although is looknig for a job over the summer. He did 3 weeks work at the Post Office on the Christmas post so had to tell them all about that although it really was very minor in the scheme of things. And DD has a Saturday job, we had a nightmare trying to make the place where she works fit into their pre-determined boxes.

Definitely questions about health Readsalot. Can't remember them off the top of my head but you were asked if you had any long term health conditions, and if you did whether they affected your day to day life. And included was whether you had mental health issues, depression etc .. I remember thinking, do I want my descendents in 100 years to know this info? Without context or detail? The sexuality and gender questions were optional of course, as were many of the questions. There were many I chose not to answer.

Meh get the Internet giants to post a real census with details, that would be juicy as fuck. I only filled it in because I was concerned about being prosecuted. If 25% don't then I won't bother next time if I am alive that is.

Ah yes - I remember now. I didn't answer all of the questions. Think the likelihood of anyone being prosecuted for non return or failure to complete properly is pretty remote.

I do think it's a shame tho as I have found old census returns truly fascinating and am sorry that historians 100 years from now will wonder why people didn't fill the census in.

Article in today's Sunday Times which said response rate in England & Wales in 2021 was 97%

Yes, Poor indictment of Scotland .

And all the discussion around digital exclusion applies to England and Wales too. And actually England have way more people who may need it in another language🤷🏼‍♀️

@readsalotgirl63
Have you seen the piece in the telegraph by Lindsay Paterson. Its behind a paywall but being discussed over on feminism boards.

"Extending the window for responding raises worrying questions about data quality,” Lindsay Paterson, professor of education policy at the University of Edinburgh, said. “In normal social surveys, there are strict quality controls on the time given to respond. “This is because people vary in how they respond, especially for opinion questions such as the several identity questions in the census. For example, how people answer the question about gender identity might vary according to whether some controversy about gender identity is in the news. The same is true of national identity and ethnic identity.” He added: “As a social statistician, I would not use census data on identity that had such an arbitrarily varying window of replying.”'

All the people who moved between Scotland and England in the in-between year will either be counted twice or not at all.
The questions were confusing and in places ambiguous. Scots language is most certainly not “everything apart from Gaelic” for example. One part of the form said to include students who lived away from home, yet the students in halls were told to fill them out for themselves 🤷‍♀️.
I reckon people just gave up.

I also thought the medical questions were intrusive. The English version just asked if you were able to live independently, I think.