Tag: Census

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Challenging Statistics

Introduction
Origin aside, ever since the quotation made famous by Mark Twain, that there are three types of lies – lies, damn lies and statistics – the profession of statistics invariably finds itself under the microscope and the practitioners of the profession having their output continually challenged.

The preliminary report on the Guyana Population and Housing Census 2012 which began in the fourth quarter of 2012 and closed in January 2013 has just been published. The census was conducted as part of a regional effort coordinated by the CARICOM Secretariat and in compliance with the United Nations’ mandate to execute the 2010 Global Round of Censuses.

The two principal criticisms I have heard of the preliminary report relate to a gratuitous comment made by the Chief Statistician about migration and concerns expressed by a number of persons that they could not recall having been enumerated in the census. Data for the years 2004 – 2013 published by the Ministry of Finance and the Bureau of Statistics show official net outward migration of approximately 12,700 persons per annum which accords with my own best estimate using figures published by the Bureau of Statistics from data supplied by the Registrar of Births and Deaths.

The second matter, if true, is serious but for a different reason. Population size feeds into two key economic indicators used for international comparison purposes – per capita GDP and per capita GNP. Age and geographic distribution are useful indicators for planners in education, health and pension policies, in determining the location of schools and medical facilities and estimating the expenditure on pensions.
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Not a ‘marginal’ reduction in population

The 2012 census data are now out. The report shows that Guyana’s population has dropped to 747,884, down from 751,223 recorded for 2002. Taking an arithmetic approach Chief Statistician and Census Officer Lennox Benjamin calculates and describes the decline of 3,339 as a “marginal reduction.”

I would have had no difficulty with our Chief Statistician if he had simply provided the figures and let analysts and commentators consider their implications, or himself do so. In a matter involving so many components it is misleading, even dangerously so, to take two bald figures, subtract one from the other and then make a qualitative judgement therefrom about substantial or marginal. Mr Benjamin then adds the gratuitous comment that the “marginal reduction” was “mainly influenced by migration.”

There is nothing marginal about the numbers. If we add to the population of 751,223 persons in 2002 the 124,805 representing the number of births over deaths over the same period, the population at 2012 should have been 876,028 persons. In other words, we have lost at a minimum 128,144 persons. I describe this as minimum because over the past 10 years Guyana has attracted an indeterminate number of mainly Brazilians and Chinese at a rate not experienced by this country for more than 70 years.

If the number of inward immigrants is put conservatively at 1,000 persons per annum, it means that Guyana has lost a staggering 138,144 persons to outward migration, on a population that is less than three-quarters of a million.

Surely, surely it is time for those who manage this country to reflect on the causes why Guyanese are still leaving this country in droves and on the implications for the country of its best, brightest, most productive and ablest persons opting to leave.

I will review more fully the preliminary report on the 2012 census this weekend.