The census is closed to record

Such a thoughtful remark appeared on one Internet forum: "I thought that the census had not yet begun ... but it had already passed." The census of the population of 2010 may be included in the annals of our demographic statistics as the most invisible and the most inaccurate.

A lot of scribes were involved - more than 600 thousand. However, the vast majority of them were students, and the professional skills of current students leave much to be desired. Moreover, most of them had to work voluntarily, under the threat of expulsion from the university in case of refusal. And although the financing of the current census was four times more than in 2002, the head of the VTsome Valery Fedorov is right, when he says that they saved on the scribes in vain. If they hired not students, but professional interviewers, spending an extra 10-15 billion rubles, then the quality of the census would be significantly higher. And so, according to experts, the quality of the current census is even lower than the 2002 census, to which there were a lot of claims at one time.

According to preliminary data, the current census was ignored by a third of the inhabitants of Moscow, almost half of the inhabitants of Izhevsk, 40% of the Volga population. Most often, scribes simply did not come to citizens. But there were cases of a protest rejection of the census. So, in Kirov, 6 thousand people who were dissatisfied with the policies of the city authorities did not want to at once in Kirov. In Chelyabinsk, they did not participate in the census were included in the blacklist and threatened to deprive social benefits. And in Ryazan refusing to correspond in Ryazan, they tried to force them to do this with the help of the police.

According to the survey among readers of Novaya Gazeta, the scribes did not come to almost 24% of respondents, and almost 29% refused to talk with the scribes. And only 46% of respondents gave all the necessary information about themselves. Meanwhile, according to reports, officials everywhere with a census amounted to 94 to 100 percent. According to a survey conducted by the researchers of the Superjob.ru recruiting portal among 8,000 respondents from all regions of the country, only 80% of the economically active population participated in the census, and only 53% filled out questionnaires personally, and 27% tested this to their relatives. At the same time, 7% of respondents participating in the census reported partially or completely false information about themselves. Perhaps the true share of those who were really not covered by the census lies between the data of the Superjob.ru polls and the Novaya Gazeta. The latter was also attended by pensioners, who probably often did not open the door to the scribes of fear of letting thieves and scammers more often. Although there is an opinion that, according to the results of the census, the population of Russia will consist mainly of people with disabilities and pensioners, since their scribes are more likely to find at home. The real share of non-participation can be 35-40%, or even more: after all, illegal migrants are probably not covered by sociological surveys, which the census was taken into account to the least degree. From my acquaintances, I had to hear that their comrades who worked as scribes went to the apartments only on the first day, and then worked only on databases.

In the fair opinion of experts, if the share of “drawn” profiles exceeds 30%, the census actually loses its meaning. It is proposed even instead of financing a dubious census campaign to combine existing departmental bases and create a single register of residents. However, it is far from the fact that the creation and subsequent maintenance of the registry will cost cheaper than conducting the census. The necessary information is scattered by a number of organizations, to bring it together and constantly updated funds also. In addition, there is no guarantee that the existing databases are quite full. In particular, they do not cover illegal migrants, the number of which in Russia, apparently, is growing.

In the censuses of the population, they usually raise questions to which current statistics do not give a reliable answer. The organizers of the 2010 census, for example, had the opportunity to include the question of religion in the questionnaire (of course, if the response is voluntary), but under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church did not dare to do this. After all, the census could show a much smaller share of the Orthodox than the statistics of the patriarchy shows, and a significantly higher percentage of adherents of Islam among traditionally Muslim peoples, as well as a rather large number of Protestants and Catholics.

Why does the state need a census? The traditional answer is in order to better plan various kinds of social programs. However, there is no information that the results of the previous census were used in the field for such planning. If such examples were, it is a sin not to use them in the propaganda campaign in connection with the 2010 census. But nothing like this was shown to us. And the social programs themselves, despite the loud declarations, are by no means a priority for our state.

Another widespread belief - the census is carried out so that the authorities are more handy of manipulating "dead souls" in the elections of all levels. There is an opinion that with the census they were in a hurry to have time to conduct it before the next parliamentary and presidential elections and to receive data for their falsification. But to falsify the results of the elections, the already existing database is quite enough. On the contrary, accurately and correctly conducted census can only reduce the number of "dead souls". And in any case, the party of power is able to solve all its elected problems without any census.

Many Russians are also sure that the population census is just the next reason for the “cut” of budget money. Indeed, in comparison with 2002, the funds were allocated almost four times more (solid growth, even taking into account inflation) and at the same time strongly saved on the PR campaign and the interviewers. This leads to the assumption that this time a piece of more than eight years ago was bitten away from the budget cake. However, the money is still not so large, and there are many more simple ways to put it in your pocket than to arrange an all -Russian event with more than 600 thousand participants that you do not want, but you will have to pay. There are much simpler methods of “cut” when everything is done only on paper, a stroke of the pen, and you do not have to bother with the processing of one and a half hundred millions of questionnaires, no matter the genuine or false.

In fact, the Russian authorities are conducting a census of the population simply because it should be. Here, the organization of the United Nations to the states recommended to conduct census once in ten years - Russia and holds so as not to hit the face in the mud. And since the UN considers the best year for the census the one that ends to zero, 2010 fits perfectly, without any back thought about the upcoming elections. And, of course, in order to show the world community that we are not some Africa, the authorities will insist that the authorities counted all the inhabitants of Russia for sure. And the UN, unlike African, is unlikely to be bought by the Russian census. Still, Russia is a great power, a member of the Security Council, and most importantly, does not claim international assistance as an underdeveloped country. In the same way, Chinese censuses do not cause any doubts, although there is likely there is a significant imperfection of the population. As for African census, they, on the contrary, overstate the population, since the subsidies received from the UN are proportional to the number of residents. But often such an overestimation is made ineptly, without taking into account the results of previous census. On this basis, UN experts and marry the census of many African countries. In our country, people will be quite competent, they will not allow such primitive errors to process the results of the census. Which, however, does not make her data more reliable.

Worse when the results of the 2010 census are published, we are unlikely to even say with confidence, overestimated or underestimated and how much it is the number of the Russian population.

"As the previous 2002 census showed, the country's population was 1.8 million more than in the current assessment due to lack of migration," the State Statistics Committee said. But in fact, it was impossible to say with confidence about that census whether it really took into account almost 2 million inhabitants not taken into account by current statistics, or it was the result of elementary posts, because of which, for example, the population of Chechnya showed record growth, despite military losses.

The State Statistics Committee, the Federal Migration Service and other departments, of course, is beneficial to declare that the allegations of independent experts about many millions of illegal illegal migrants are refuted by the results of the census. This was said about the 2002 census - the same thing will be repeated in connection with the results of the current one. But this does not mean at all that in Russia there are no mass of migrants who are not taken into account either by current statistics or census. After all, the statement of this fact would mean recognition of the inefficiency of the FMS. But for the latter, illegal migrants are a chicken that carries gold eggs. Therefore, she never sought to take them in any way and thereby legalize them. Not to mention the fact that the population of all the subsidized republics of the North Caucasus will probably be significantly overstated, and data on the national composition can be distorted in favor of certain ethnic groups not only here, but also in other republics.

In Soviet times, the applied role of the censuses of the population was better visible. Then the results of the census were directly laid in five -year plans. In addition, the authorities wanted to know exactly how many millions of conscripts she could mobilize in case of war. And already post -war census since 1959 have been very accuracy. In the 1979 census, for example, a male advantage was preserved until the age of 29, which was a sign of a very complete accounting of the male population. By that time, the fear of people about communicating with the state, inspired by Stalinist repressions, if it did not disappear completely, then significantly weakened. On the contrary, the development of the social security system encouraged people not to evade the census. The educational level of the population has increased. There were practically no external migrations in the country, and internal migrations were largely controlled by the authorities. In general, the population had a relatively low social and territorial mobility during this period, which facilitated its accounting.

With the end of the Soviet era, the accuracy of the population's census has decreased greatly. This was due to the sharp growth of social and territorial mobility. At the same time, the distrust of the population and the crime rate increased, and the level of social security fell. All this encouraged citizens not very willing to contact with scribes. The quality of education and statistical culture decreased. The authorities began to pursue the censuses much less value than in Soviet times, because it pays much less attention to the Socialist. And the problem of creating a multimillion -dollar army in case of war has lost its relevance. All this objectively could not but lead to a decrease in the accuracy and reliability of census, regardless of the will of their organizers.

It turns out that today only that part of the scientific community (sociologists, demographers, social historians) is truly interested in the population census, which actively uses the results of census in their research. One respected scientist sincerely complained that some media that unleashed the campaign are to blame for the possible inaccuracy of the census. But this is like attempts to blame the mirror that our appearance is not quite happy with us. At the same time, interested scientists emphasize not on the applied value of the census, but on the ability to make a cut of the state of society and, comparing it with the results of other census, make a long -term forecast of social and demographic development. But, unfortunately, long -term social and demographic forecasts are not more accurate than meteorological.