Forty years of population statistics at the United Nations
Population bulletin of the United Nations 1986(19-20): 146-157
1986
ISSN/ISBN: 0251-7604 PMID: 12314722 Document Number: 348208
The Statistical and Population Commissions perform the work of the United Nations (UN) Secretariat in population statistics. Their Demographic Yearbook has come to serve an ever wider variety of users. Most data comes from an annual questionnaire sent to national statistical services in 200 contries or areas worldwide. Data quality and reliability improved significantly with each decennial round of population censuses. Standardized definitions and classification methods; detailed footnoting; and the complementation of missing or incomplete data from official national sources promote their usefulness and international comparability. From 1955-74, demographic and related economic and social statistics were integrated by attempts, through technical cooperation, to improve national statistical services, and by methodological work, including the publication of handbooks, manuals, and technical reports. The Statistical Office, under Statistical Commission guidance, promoted sampling technics for obtaining demographic and related information and for evaluating census and civil registration systems. The UN also promoted efforts to improve civil registration and vital events data accuracy. Those efforts included revising recommendations and handbooks and preparing the World Program for the Improvement of Vital Statistics. Every decade, the UN has issued principles and recommendations for population and housing censuses and contributed to the improvement of national efforts, including the recent development of regional variants of the World Population and Housing Censuses recommendations; emphasizing developing country needs; and promoting electronic data processing worldwide. 193 countries representing 95% of the world's population conducted a census between 1975-84. The UN launched the National Household Survey Capability Program in the late 1970s, to provide data on population and related demographic characteristics linked with other social and economic variables.