This week you will receive your census papers. You fill in these forms on March 8th. There is an individual form and a household form. One person in your house fills in the household form. The information is about the kind of house you live in, the number of rooms and whether you own it or rent it. The individual form asks for personal details like name, age, whether you are married, who are the people you live with (for example your son or grandmother), the languages you speak, your ethnicity, your qualifications and job, how many hours you work, your income and how you travel to work.

Some people worry about giving personal information but this is kept secret. Only the Statistics NZ staff read this and they have to sign to keep all information secret. When all the information from the forms has been entered in computers, the forms are locked away for 100 years. It takes 200 people five months to enter all the information.

After that, staff at Statistics NZ analyse the information. We can go to their website and find out information like the average age of New Zealanders, the number of children under the age of 5, the number of people over the age of 80 and so on. This is useful information for government offices like the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Health. Information about female jobs is interesting. How many women earn high salaries? It is also useful to compare information from the previous census and to compare with other countries.

We have a census every five years. It is always the second Tuesday in March. Tuesday is a very ordinary day during the week. March is a time of year when most people are not on holiday.

This is the census website: http://www.census.govt.nz/

Questions

What kind of information do you like to compare between countries?

Why is the Ministry of Health interested in the number of people over 80?

What other government offices are interested in census information?