Dissemination Seminar on Post Enumeration Check of the Population and Housing Census, 2022

Dissemination Seminar on PEC of the Population and Housing Census, 2022

Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) organised a “Dissemination Seminar on Post Enumeration Check of the Population and Housing Census, 2022” on 06 February 8, 2023, at NEC Conference Room, Ministry of Planning. BIDS Senior Research Fellow Dr. Mohammad Yunus presented the technical findings of the Post Enumeration Check of the Population and Housing Census, 2022.

The primary objectives of the PEC exercise are to assess coverage and content errors and to give credibility to the Population and Housing Census 2022 results.  

Dr. Yunus said in his presentation, “The broad findings of the PEC point towards satisfactory correspondence between the PEC estimate of True population and the number of units enumerated in the PHC.” 

The estimates of coverage error were looked at from alternative angles of net coverage error rate through different domains. It was found that these estimates were low and well within acceptable limits. Two factors that contributed to the low coverage error rate were (i) the listing of all households well in advance of the PHC and (ii) the use of digital data collection and simultaneous electronic monitoring of data collection. Reconciliation of non-matched PHC persons and households was greatly eased owing to strenuous jobs with due diligence by the field officials of the BBS. As a result, the incidence of reconciliation was significantly high for non-matched census and PEC persons, which helped reduce the extent of coverage error.

For evaluating the extent of content error in the census, the levels of response variance for different items covered in the PHC reveal that enumerator agreement varied very little across characteristics. The fact that marginal totals for each enumerator are very close for most of the items indicates that the response variability is random in nature, and there is very little systematic bias associated with the reporting of either the group of the PHC enumerators or the group of PEC enumerators.

“This absence of a systematic bias associated with the enumerators  indicates that the census procedures, including training and supervision, were of acceptable quality,” Dr. Yunus concluded.

Dr. Shamsul Alam, Honorable Minister of State, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, attended the event as the Guest of Honour. Satyajit Karmaker, Secretary of Planning Division; Dr. Shahnaz Arefin, ndc, Secretary of Statistics and Informatics Division, and Mr. Md Matiar Rahman, Director General of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics attended the event as Special Guests. Dr. Binayak Sen, the Director General of BIDS, chaired this seminar. The attendees of this seminar included researchers from BIDS, development professionals, policymakers, representatives from civil society, and journalists.