The experts weigh in: Four very good commentaries on the census in Canadian Public Policy

The September 2010 issue of Canadian Public Policy has four articles on the census debacle, and they are all very much worth reading. As academic publishing goes, this is a lightening-quick response to a decision that was announced less than three months ago. I strongly encourage you to read them for yourselves: they are relatively short and non-technical. Some of the material has already been covered here on WCI, but much of it was new to me.

First up is "The Politics of the Census: Lessons from Abroad", by Harvard University's Debra Thompson. (The paper is still gated as I write this, but I am assured that it will be made publicly available sometime today. Okay, it's now ungated.) Her article puts the decision in an international perspective, and notes that the census has been a subject of partisan politics in the US and the UK.

"The Importance of the Long-Form Census to Canada" is written by UBC economists David Green and Kevin Milligan. Since they are economists, their approach to the problem closely mirrors the one I've taken here. (I should point out that in addition to writing this post and supplementing other posts with very useful comments, Kevin Milligan has provided me with any number of pieces of timely advice over the past weeks.) Readers who have been baffled by offhand references to 'reweighting' and 'benchmarks' will be relieved to see these terms explained, along with an explanation of just how big a deal the census is. I especially like section "The hidden ubiquity of the census".

Université de Montréal demographer Lisa Dillon's "The Value of the Canadian Long-Form Census for Long Term National and International Research" points out a problem of which I was previously unaware. Up until 2006, Canada was part of an international consortium of census databases that allowed researchers to make direct cross-country comparisons over time. But the voluntary NHS will not be considered to be sufficiently rigourous by international standards. Here is what the director of the consortium had to say:

Voluntary census data would be unacceptable for inclusion in the IPUMS-International database. We have suppressed a number of census samples entrusted to the project precisely because, despite their official nature, they failed to meet quality standards. We have never encountered a voluntary sample and never expected to see one. The lack of a scientific long form sample for the 2011 Census of Canada would be doubly unfortunate because, by country of residence, Canadians rank fifth among users of the IPUMS-International database and the Canadian samples rank tenth in terms of usage, with 1,614 extracts—above the UK and Spain.

Ouch.

Finally, McMaster University's Mike Veall has an article entitled "2B or Not 2B? What Should Have Happened with the Canadian Long Form Census? What Should Happen Now?" that addresses issues of process. It outlines how the government should have handled the file given its stated concerns, and it makes some suggestion that may attenuate some of the damage that making the NHS voluntary will do.

None of the articles are longer than 6 pages. Go read them. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell your distant acquaintances.

Comments

[Frances Woolley]

The danger of measuring the quality of posts by the number of comments - the two commentaries that I've read (Green and Milligan, Veall) are beautifully written and argued - so much so that there's nothing left to say!

[Stephen Gordon]

Yeah, I figure that much of my future census blogging will consist of cutting-and-pasting from those articles. What else is there to say?

[westslope]

Hmmm..... Lisa Dillon for Prime Minister?

Can I say "Wow!" ?

[Karen Krisfalusi]

It should be no surprise that the IRPP rushed out dumbed down journalistic input for public consumption on the census issue. Mel Cappe (their Prez) penned a letter on the subject lobbying the government and the whole sleazy enterprise of 'research for spin value' that is the IRPP depends on the authority of census data.

But back to Gordon. How come he didn't write about FDK himself? Why post Kevin Milligan's drivel instead? http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2010/09/kindergarten.html
I've known Gordon to be the guy that says "To lift people out of poverty, give them money". Well here are 5 provinces doing just that and Gordon's pen doesn't move? He can only post Milligan's doubts about 'the economic benefits' of FDK, when Milligan DOESN'T EVEN NOTE the C4SE study that the Government has cited in defense of it's spending:
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oise.utoronto.ca%2Fatkinson%2FUserFiles%2FFile%2FNews%26EventsDocs%2FFairholm%2520Seminar%2520Aug%25202010%2FEconomic%2520Analysis%2520Aug%252027.pdf&ei=aGaXTLPCKY2gsQPt8fm_Cg&usg=AFQjCNEVsT-V1IdY5il-fMiuQQ-D0_ePPQ&sig2=b9Yoan_rM6Ls1QxRFAchYQ
I think Gordon and Mike Moffat are playing too much to the ghouls at Maclean's and losing focus.
Get off Twitter guys and back to what you do best....

[Guillaume]

Frances, I just want to tell you that my offer still stands if you still need help!