Census closes with 'raw' response rate just short of 90% target

Monday, 3 July 2023

Fewer than 90% of people returned individual census forms by Friday’s deadline, based on “raw data” collated by Stats NZ, the department has now confirmed.

Stats NZ said on Monday that it had received 4,563,800 responses by the deadline, which equates to a raw response rate of just over 89%.

The true response rate may be slightly lower, in part because the raw data takes no account of the fact that some responses will have been duplicates from individuals who filled out the census more than once.

It is also based on a population estimate that dates backs to June last year, rather than the higher population as it was on the day of the census on March 7.

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Stats NZ is currently provisionally estimating the resident population at the end of March at 5,199,100, though that would be reduced by the number who were overseas on census day.

Stats NZ will release an “estimated national collection response rate” that should be closer to the true figure next week.

However, it will not report a final response rate until late next year after combing through all of the responses.

Statistics Minister Deborah Russell agreed in March to stake her job on reaching the 90% target.

Statistics Minister Deborah Russell indicated that staking her job on a 90% census response rate was not a considered move, and one she quickly clarified.

But she indicated in a radio interview on Friday that she had done so in haste, a few weeks into the job, with the noble goal of maintaining public confidence in the census.

“I had to think quickly when someone threw that question at me.”

Failing to stake her job on the target when asked could have undermined the census, she said.

“Later on that afternoon, I was very clear that what I was doing was making sure I was expressing real confidence in my officials.”

The 2023 Census response rate at least looks certain to be an improvement on the 82% final figure recorded in the previous census in 2018, when Stats NZ put too much faith in people’s willingness to fill in the census online.

More non-responses this year appear to have been due to factors outside of Stats NZ’s control, such as declining trust in government in some sections of the community in the wake of Covid and social media disinformation, and the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle.

Deputy government statistician Simon Mason had warned former statistics minister David Clark in a briefing document in August that there was evidence of growing and significant anti-government sentiment and “reducing trust and confidence in the government in parts of the community”.

That sentiment could “negatively impact responses”, he cautioned then.

Russell said that it would be possible to include some information from about 97% of people in the census.

That is because Stats NZ also has access to information from other government departments, such as Inland Revenue, that it can use to fill in some of the blanks.