CENSUS 2011

Germany will participate in the EU-wide population census scheduled for 2011. The population census is a survey determining how many people live in a country or in a town, and what their housing and work is like. Already in their coalition agreement for the 16th legislative term of the German Bundestag, the political parties supporting the German Government agreed on participating in the EU-wide census. With the cabinet decision of 29 August 2006, the Federal Government adopted the basic principle that the census in Germany will be conducted using a register-based procedure. That basic decision ensures that the census will produce reliable results while involving low burdens for the people in Germany and that it will be conducted with minimum costs.

Below you will find selected information on the census. Detailed explanations on the census 2011 are given on a joint web site of the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder.

Germany needs new population and housing data

Germany needs a new census because the population and housing data currently available are based on updates of the last population censuses. They were last conducted in the former territory of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1987 and in the former GDR in 1981.

Since the latest population censuses were performed, the people, the society, and the economy in Germany have undergone historic changes: The Wall has come down and, with the euro introduction and the Eastern enlargement, European integration has achieved a new quality. In Germany, there is not only a North-South migration but also a strong East-West migration. What is more, there have been hundreds of thousands of in-migrations and out-migrations in Germany since the last two censuses (immigrants of German origin, asylum seekers, civil war refugees). The people's habits have changed more rapidly than in the decades before. A low birth rate and a rising life expectancy have changed the number and structure of the population to a degree unknown in the past. Reliable and up-to-date information on the population, the labour market, and on housing is not sufficiently available. The population figures currently determined by official statistics are probably much too high. The extent will be known only after the new census. There is no doubt: Germany needs a census.

Register-based census = high quality + low burden

Based on an in-depth methodical test, the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder recommended in 2003 that conducting the census should be based on registers. This means that basically only those data will be collected from the people in Germany which cannot be obtained by evaluating existing administrative registers (mainly population registers and registers of the Federal Employment Agency). For example, information on buildings and dwellings for which administrative data are not available for the entire territory will be collected by post from the owners of those buildings or dwellings. Other questions, such as on education and training, or questions concerning self-employed, will be addressed only to a small part of the inhabitants, that is to representative samples of the population. The statistical offices tested that method from 2001 to 2003. The method of a register-based census will provide just as reliable results as does a traditional population census. At the same time, smaller burdens will be placed on the people in Germany because only part of the inhabitants will be questioned; the costs for taxpayers will thus be markedly lower.

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