Doubts about the Census: the Government evaluates whether it does this year or passes by 2021

Pablo Ibáñez

02/27/2020 - 10:51

• Clarín.com
• Politics

There are 45 million interviews, in a single day, across the country. It is a statistical input that should be used to evaluate and plan public policies, diagnose demography and social and infrastructure situation. What happened, what happens and where to go.

In one day, 750 thousand censistas go out and go house by house in search of these data. This is the largest logistics deployment: if it seems a lot to make an election where 25 million people vote, what about a massive, household survey of 45 million Argentines?

The size of this operation put the Government to evaluate whether the calendar established by INDEC in the days of Mauricio Macri, which was established as the date for the census on October 28, 2020, is still in place. That is, within eight months.

Santiago Cafiero, Chief of Cabinet, met on Wednesday with the head of INDEC, Marco Lavagna , to check deadlines and preliminary cost analysis, to conduct the census on the date scheduled by the previous government.

2020 Census Form used in the pilot test of September 2019.

There was no decision yet. There will be one more instance referring to how the operation is financed and then the determination of whether it is confirmed by the end of this year or postponed to the beginning of 2021.

Alberto Fernández will now have a detailed report on the census, compliance with the calendar and a preliminary guideline on how much it will cost to complete. "In a few days, the date has been defined , " government sources told Clarín .

"The priority is to make a quality census. If to achieve this you have to delay a few months, it is not a problem," they point out from Casa Rosada.

By rule - the decree 3110 of 1970 that regulated the law 17.622 that created the INDEC - the censuses are carried out every 10 years but the Argentine history is full of exceptions: with more than 200 years of institutional history, ten censuses were carried out. The next one will be number 11 .

In the last decades, the formalism of the year was fulfilled in 1970, 1980 and 2010 but the calendar was modified in 1991 and 2001. In the Government they say that in case of delaying until 2021, it would be for the beginning of next year.

Why could it be postponed? "There are pre-census tasks that were not done or are delayed, work is being done on the questionnaire and there is a lack, in some places, information to define the operation," explains an official linked to the realization.

A case: to establish the route that each census taker will make, you need a map of each home you will visit. That data, in some territories, is not yet complete. "The election year complicated that work a bit , " they slip into the government.

In 2017 and 2019, INDEC organized two trials to evaluate the operation and the questionnaire that will be made to the censored. On that basis, issues and questions were corrected, but there is a lack of evidence in the Government to detect possible errors.

Marco Lavagna,

There are two issues that are considered essential: the training of the 750 thousand people who will work as censors, with the entire exercise of the questionnaire, and something as important or more important: a strong, clear and timely campaign on the importance of the Census so that inhabitants collaborate.

That is not. The dynamics of the economic crisis and electoral tensions took, or left in the background or background, the question of the census and now, with time but in a hurry, the Government has to define whether they give the deadlines to guarantee "a quality census ".

Another element not less is the cost. That account will be sketched by an INDEC team and then will go to the Economy orbit. Globally, there is a generic account about the cost of a census: it ranges from 1 to 2 dollars per inhabitant.

Devaluation through, and since the main cost is the payment to the censists, it could be closer to 1 than 2 which means a cost close to 45 million dollars, about 2.8 billion pesos.

Data to estimate the size, cost and deadlines: with 750 thousand censists in the streets, the material they will use will require purchases and tenders. That will also take time.

In the development of content, work has been done on the questionnaire, a task that also - they say in the Government - demands extra time because new elements and statistical and methodological profiles are incorporated.