By Khalid Dalal
AMMAN — The 5th General Population and Housing Census will commence in October with 15,000 employees charged with the task of conducting the process, the government announced Tuesday.
Jordan Times
Tuesday, July 21, 2004
General census to commence in
October
By Khalid Dalal
AMMAN — The 5th General Population and Housing Census will commence in October
with 15,000 employees charged with the task of conducting the process, the
government announced Tuesday.
The census will provide updated information on
the population in the Kingdom and their demographic and socio-economic
characteristics.
The process of surveying the number of buildings in the Kingdom began last
Sunday and is expected to conclude by September.
“Both censuses, when concluded, will provide a comprehensive, detailed and
reliable database for economic and development programmes in the future,”
Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Bassem Awadallah told a press
conference yesterday.
The data, which will include demographic, social and economic information, will
be essential to policy and decision makers, he added.
The census will provide information on the number of Jordanians working abroad,
the number of non-Jordanians in the country, and the unemployment and poverty
rates.
Awadallah said the questionnaire would not contain any questions referring to
the origins of Jordanians. In the past there has been much criticism concerning
this point. “This is proof that the census has no political dimension at all,”
Awadallah stressed.
The minister said all necessary measures to ensure the success of the process
have been taken with relevant authorities, including the Department of
Statistics (DoS) and the interior and education ministries.
Awadallah said that census is expected to cost around JD6.7 million. “While JD5
million will be allocated from the Treasury, the remaining JD1.7 million will be
secured from international assistance,” said the minister, who heads a
ministerial committee supervising the census process.
According to the DoS law, the government is obliged to conduct a census every 10
years. The first census was held in 1952 and recorded a total population of
586,000. This number almost doubled by 1961 with the population reaching
901,000. In 1979, the population increased to a total of 2.1 million and in
1994, when the last census was conducted, the population was estimated at 4.1
million.
“We expect the population to reach 5.5 million in 2004,” said Awadallah, adding
that the census results are expected to be announced by the last quarter of next
year.
Jordanians are expected to double in number after 25 years if the current 2.8
per cent growth rate remains the same. According to DoS, 38.8 per cent of the
population is concentrated in the capital.