Economic Commission for Europe Conference of European Statisticians Group of Experts on Population and Housing Censuses Nineteenth Meeting Geneva, 4–6 October 2017 Item 3 of the provisional agenda Innovations in census technology

The French online census

Note by INSEE, France

Summary In France, since 2015, every person concerned by the census can fill the form online. For those who cannot or do not want, it is always possible to fill paper forms.

In 2015, 33 % of households chose the internet response option, representing 38 % of inhabitants. These rates increased regularly with 39 % of households (46 % of people) in 2016 and 46 % of households (and 54 % of people) in 2017.

This paper presents the main aspects of the French online census.

United Nations ECE/CES/GE.41/2017/29

Economic and Social Council 21 September 2017 English only

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I. The project

1. This project was decided for two reasons :

(a) be more efficient and reduce the census costs,

(b) adapt the census to the new technological habits of the citizens and provide a better service to them.

2. Like others countries, France has to find new ways to be even more efficient and to reduce costs of the census. Given that we do not have “population register” in France, the improvement of the data collection process remained the best solution.

3. Moreover, others administrations, like the tax authority for example, had already proposed online services, and citizens would not have understood that the census stayed with paper forms.

4. The preparation of the project lasted from 2010 till 2015.

5. First of all, we decided to keep our general work organization with local authorities. In France, the census survey is organized within the framework of a partnership between Insee and the municipalities. The principles and the rules of this partnership have to remain unchanged. The municipalities are responsible for the achievement of data collection on their territory and still have to certify the number of persons enumerated, whatever the option they have chosen (internet or paper).

6. Similarly, the principles of the rolling census are unchanged. In France, the rolling census is organized over a five years cycle and a sample design with a cover of about 70 % of the population for a cycle. The methods used to calculate official populations and statistical results are also the same for online or paper data.

7. In this context, several stakes were to overcome :

(a) build a device that could collect potentially about 5 million questionnaires each year,

(b) ensure a high level of safety (with access codes and passwords),

(c) maintain reliability of software application over a 5 weeks period with a system available 7/7 days and 24/24 hours.

8. Prudence led us to proceed by steps. Surveys testing have been organized in few cities between 2012 and 2014 (14 in 2012, 50 in 2013 and 350 in 2014). Working this way gave us a lot of experience before opening the service to all households. It was also important to give confidence to all the participants in the census survey including our partners in town authorities. Local authorities are very sensitive to census quality as the population figures are used to budget allocation. They must be confident in the fact that internet survey is reliable and that nobody is missing.

II. How it works

9. The period of data collection is the same for the two options, paper or internet.

10. In any case, an enumerator pays a visit to each household. During this visit, he (she) explains the functioning of the census surveys, convinces people to answer with arguments about the utility of the operation and the respect of confidentiality of the data collected.

11. In the case of an answer by internet, the enumerator gives a flyer with a single-use code and password. He also writes on the flyer the identifier of the housing and that's all. The inhabitants have to type these codes and identifier at the beginning of the questionnaire. The website is very simple and an online help is available. When the

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inhabitants have answered on line, the enumerator is informed by a SMS. The internet forms are directly transmitted to Insee (the municipalities cannot see them).

12. If the inhabitant prefers to answer with paper forms, the enumerator gives him the forms, plans a new visit with the inhabitant to take the forms back.

13. In 2017, we collected about 1,8 million internet questionnaires (for a data collection that concerned only 14 % of the whole population). It represented 46 % of households and 54 % of people concerned by the census survey.

14. At the peak load, we collected 14,000 questionnaires in one hour. Households use internet questionnaire each day of the week. And they use it whatever the time of the day. Mainly from 8 in the morning to 10 in the evening, but during the five weeks collection time, there was no hour without questionnaires.

15. The experience shows that the internet rate is directly linked to the municipalities' and enumerators' behavior. Some municipalities are reluctant to propose the online census. With this way of data collecting, the municipalities have no longer the possibility to see the fulfilled forms and some of them refuse to miss this information (despite they are not allowed to read or copy them). Some municipalities also fear that more people forget to fill the forms with the online census.

16. But when municipalities fully agree with the internet option, the results are higher, near 60 % for the online rate.

The flyer : Code and password Identifier of housing

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Examples of screens

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17. For their part, some enumerators do not want to change their habits. Some others have preconceived ideas: they do not propose the internet option to poor or aged people.

18. Insee develops many actions to persuade the municipalities and the enumerators to mainly propose the online census. We have developed an argument leaflet which gives all the advantages of the internet option: savings, less distance covered for the enumerators, less paper printed and handled, better service for the population, image of modernity.

19. Furthermore, in 2017, we have changed the enumeration rules. In 2015 and 2016, the internet option was presented on the same plane as the paper way. In 2017, we asked the enumerator to present the online way first and give the paper forms only to the people who refuse to answer online or who cannot answer online (no access to a computer or cannot manage with a computer)

20. We also used the financial lever. The financial allocation given by the State to the municipalities is now linked to a national internet rate, related to the efficiency due to internet response.

21. Internet response option is a crucial issue for Insee. Apart from the efficiency goals, the facilities offered by the internet technology could also permit to improve statistical patterns, for example it permits to add new types of questions that we could find only on internet and not on paper.

III. New tools for the partnership with municipalities

22. As we said it higher, the municipalities are responsible for the achievement of data collection on their territory and still have to certify the number of persons enumerated, whatever the option they have chosen (internet or paper).

23. With the online census, we had to create and to provide new tools for the municipalities so that they can manage the data collection. For that, we created a new web application usable by all the people involved in census data collection.

24. This system gives direct information about transmitted internet questionnaires. It gives information to the local officers in the municipalities through the web application and by automatic SMS service on mobile phones to the enumerators (twice time each day the census enumerators get a message with a list of the dwellings which responded with an internet form).

25. The second advantage of this new tool is that the information on paper and online forms is now shared by all the actors (Insee and municipalities). All managers of census work on the same database and each information captured by one is automatically available for others. All exchanges between Insee and local administrations go through this application (for example, for the report on advancement of data collection). Therefore, this system gives the possibility to work remotely with local staff. For example, an Insee supervisor doesn't need to go in local office in the municipality to check how the data collection goes on and he can also help local officers more easily, seeing the same information wherever he is, on his laptop as his partner. This leads to a decrease of supervisors number gradually from 500 to 400 saving about 800,000 euros on census costs (for three month work).

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IV. Who uses the internet response option

A. Age

26. Obviously, persons between 20 and 50 years old use the online resopnse more often. However, nearly one third of the people between 60 and 70 years old also respond online; and even 8 % of elderly persons above 80.

B. Number of persons living in the household :

27. Families made of 4 or 5 persons use the internet response option more often than the average of households. This is certainly partly related to age.

Internet response rate according to number of persons living in the household - 2016

20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 950%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Internet use for census questionnaire according to age (2016)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and more0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

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C. Education

28. Education is also discriminating. Higher the study level is, more often internet is preferred to paper. However, as for age, there's no category totally outside internet use.

Internet response rate according to education level - 2016

D. Size of the municipalities :

29. There are no large differences according to the size of the municipalities. The internet response rate are between 42 % and 48 % and we don’t see any linear phenomenon bound to the size of the municipalities.

Internet response rate according to the size of municipalities - 2016

Ensemble

≥ 50.000 hab.

20.000 à 49.999 hab.

10.000 à 19.999 hab.

5000 à 10.000 hab.

1000 à 4999 hab.

500 à 999 hab.

200 à 499 hab.

< 200 hab.

20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

46,4%

45,0%

41,8%

44,8%

46,4%

48,6%

47,9%

45,6%

42,3%

With

out a

ny de

gree

Lower

than h

igh sc

hool

gradu

ation

High sc

hool

gradu

ation

Upper

high s

choo

l grad

uatio

n0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%

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E. Regional behaviour

30. There is also some differences between regions. As we said it higher, most of the differences are explained by the municipalities’ and enumerators’ behavior. Even in very rural territories, we can have very high internet response rate.

31. The internet response rate is also lower in the French West Indies or in the La Réunion island.

Internet response rate in regions - 2016

5. Quality of the collected data

32. The first results are very encouraging. The general quality of the data collected is maintained and even increased. The global response rate remains around 97 %.

33. The partial non-response rate is lower in internet forms than in paper forms. Yet, we do not have scientific analysis of this phenomenon, which include a measure of the selection bias, but we can make some hypotheses of explanation: with the automatic filters of the online form, people have to answer only the questions which concern them directly. They do not have to read all the questions and their filters.

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34. We also see very few changes in the behavior of people who use the internet option. The major difference concerns the children under 18 who live for their studies in another household than those of their parents. We find more of these children in the paper forms than in the internet option.

6. Impact on the cost of the census

35. The success of internet mode has a direct impact on the cost of the census :

(a) Decrease of papers printed. The potentiality of this way for decreasing the cost of the census is not yet totally used because it is not easy to forecast the internet rate globally and, as internet rate is not similar everywhere, it is even less easy to forecast paper use at a local level. So the decrease of papers printed is far under the internet rate. We are learning and we will adjust gradually the amount of paper forms to be printed. From 2014 to 2017 we have reduced the volume of printed forms by about 25 % for a saving of around 250,000 euros.

(b) Decrease of data capture. This part of the cost is directly linked to the internet response rate. Based on 2017 cost, 2017 internet rate led to an economy of 1,4 million euros (without internet the cost of data capture would have reached 3,2 million euros).

(c) Decrease of paper handling. This part is not easy to estimate. Internet questionnaires avoided about 42 tons of paper.

(d) Decrease of work for census enumerators. As the census enumerators don't have to make a second visit to households to fetch the paper forms and the local census managers don't have to check and sort them, the local team burden is also lessened. An estimation of this reduction was made and the amount of the grant given to local authorities for the census was reduced. In 2017 this reduction is about 2,7 million euros (20 million instead of 22,7 million with the previous system).

* * * * * *

Paper form Internet form TotalYear of moving in 7,2 0,5 4,5Place of house one year before 5,0 0,1 2,8Marital status 4,7 2,1 3,6Nationality (so foreign) 3,1 0,03 2,0Previous profession 7,5 0,3 5,3Profession 4,9 0,3 2,3Type of employment contract 8,6 0,5 4,2Housing surface 5,6 0,1 3,4Number of cars 3,1 0,1 1,9

Partial non response rate – 2016 - %