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SINGAPORE : Some 200,000 selected households will receive notification letters from now till June, as the Department of Statistics begins gathering data for the Census of Population 2010.
The census, which costs S$24 million to conduct, will end in September.
The census, which is done every 10 years, has two new sections - transportation and employment.
It wants to find out how long Singaporeans take to get to school or work.
For those who are not working or studying, the census wants to know why they are not working and if they are actively looking for a job.
Other key information to be collected include data on demographic profile, economic status, education and religion.
Chief Statistician at the Department of Statistics, Wong Wee Kim, said Census 2010 will adopt a register-based approach, similar to the last census conducted in 2000.
She explained: "We conduct what we call a register-based census, which basically means that a significant portion of the data are already collected from the administrative sources. So the additional information that are not available from the administrative sources are the ones we need to collect through the survey."
Of the 60 items to be answered by the individuals, nine are obtained by the register-based approach.
Information gathered from the census will provide a detailed profile of how Singapore's population is changing. It will also provide key inputs for policy planning and programme formulation by the public sector agencies for the community.
The selected households will be given two weeks to reply either through the Internet, over the phone or face-to-face interviews at home.
Together with the notification letter, an Internet user guide and survey guide will also be provided.
For those who are overseas for 12 months or more, Ms Wong said a shorter set of questions will be used instead.
On average, a family of four respondents would take less than 30 minutes to complete the survey.
Ms Wong said: "We have (made) great improvements in terms of Internet summation, to make it easier and user-friendly for the respondents. And then for the field interview, we have a new gadget - Ultra Mobile PC - that puts in a lot of encryption when we survey the respondents."
On the challenges faced by the department in conducting such a large-scale survey, Ms Wong said: "With a more sophisticated user, there will be more data requirement. So we need to (strike a) balance between collecting the data and servicing the user, because we also do not want to increase the respondent's burden."
She added that all information collected will be confidential and protected, in line with the Statistics Act.
Some 500 staff have been roped in to help out with interviews as well as pre- and post-survey work.
Further information on the Census of Population 2010 can be found on the Census 2010 homepage at www.singstat.gov.sg/c2010. - CNA/ms
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