Wednesday, 14 March 2001

(i) For households required to answer the Short Form, is it necessary for household members to answer the questions personally?

For households required to answer the Short Form, the Census Officer, in collecting the questionnaire, has to ask the households some simple questions in order to ascertain that the information provided on the questionnaire is accurate. If necessary, the Census Officer will also check the information with individual household members. In any event, household members do not have to change their daily schedules to wait at home for the visit. The Census Officer can pay another visit at some other time to interview the other household members.

(ii) For households who are to be interviewed using the Long Form, is it necessary for every household member to answer the questions personally? If some of the household members are not at home when the Census Officer pays the visit, what would be the arrangement?

Face-to-face interview enables better communication between the Census Officer and the respondent. This is an essential element to ensure that quality data is collected. Thus the Census Officer has to interview each household member to obtain the data required. In conducting the interview, the Census Officer may also have to, for certain questions, indicate options for selection or to provide supplementary information. However, it is not necessary for household members to change their daily schedules and wait at home for the Census Officer. If some household members are not at home when the Census Officer pays visit, the Census Officer can visit the household at some other time to interview these household members.

(iii) If some household members are usually living in another place, such as an aged home or university hostel, need they be reported?

Statistically, a person is counted in one's usual residence. Take an example, a person staying most of the time in an aged home should be counted as living in the aged home and not in the original household. In designing the Census, the Census and Statistics Department has already considered such situations carefully. In case the household has included that person as a member of the household, through data supplied on certain other questions in the questionnaire, appropriate counting will be effected in the analysis stage. Meanwhile, the census taking is also performed in the aged homes and university hostels so that people there are also enumerated. Through this arrangement, there will not be double counting or under-counting.

(iv) If the entire household or individual household members are out of Hong Kong for the entire census period, what should they do? Will they be punished for not being able to provide information?

In accordance with previous experience, most people going away are for short duration. Hence census officers should be able to contact them somehow within the census period.

No matter a household is selected to answer the Short Form or the Long Form, information of a householder who is absent for the entire period may be supplied by other members as far as possible. Where the whole household is away for the entire period, the visiting census officer will place a "self-administered questionnaire" into the mail box of the household when they pay a last visit at the end of the census period on 27 March. They can fill it out and mail it back to the Census and Statistics Department by 10 April.

Persons who cannot be interviewed because they are away for the entire census period are of course NOT liable to punishment.