Institute of National Statistics

Department of Studies, Demographic Projection and Population Census

Bd Libertatii nr.16 sector 5, Bucuresti, Romania

Data given in this domain refer to the 2011 Population and Dwelling Census carried-out in Romania in October 2011. Data were collected by enumerators hired by local public administrations and processed by National Institute of Statistics.

2011 Population and Dwelling Census applied the requests of European Regulations and United Nations and Eurostat Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing. In the same time, the Romanian dedicated legislation was applied.

The essential aim of 2011 Population and Dwelling Census was to obtain and offer basic and good quality statistical information for governmental policies in the economic and social fields in the benefit of human development.

More specific, the goals of the census was to obtain more detailed and good quality statistics about the number and territorial distribution of population, about it’s demographic and socio-economic structure and information about population households,  building stock and living conditions of population.

Based on this very important information, it will be possible to analyze the dynamics of several demographic and social phenomena, both at national and international level.

The following classification and nomenclatures were applied:

-         International classifications: NUTS, ISCO 08, ISCED, ISIC

-         National nomenclatures:

• The synthetic nomenclature of localities
• Nomenclature of educational units
• Nomenclature of ethnic groups and mother tongue

 "Usual residence" was considered the place where a person normally spends the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary absences for purposes of recreation, holidays, visits to friends and relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage.

The following persons alone were considered to be usual residents of one particular geographical area:

(i) those that have lived in their place of usual residence for a continuous period of at least 12 months before the Census reference date (20-th of October 2011); or

(ii) those that arrived in their place of usual residence during the 12 months before the Census reference date with the intention of staying there for at least one year.

Children born in the twelve months previous Census reference date were included as usual resident population of the geographic area where they lived.

Persons who have been temporarily absent for a short period from their place of usual residence over the previous 12 months for reasons as work or holiday travel were also included.

The definition of usual residence and 12 months criteria, including intention to stay for 12 months or more was defined in Staff’s handbook and in all training support materials.

For the imputed records, because the circumstances described in point (i) or (ii) cannot be established, ‘usual residence’ was the place of legal residence (the address recorded in the administrative data sources).It is the case of 1,183,005 usual resident persons.

Tertiary students who were away from home while at college or university were considered to have usual residence where their term-time address were situated, regardless it was a private residence or an institution and regardless of whether they are pursuing the education elsewhere in the country or abroad.

Usual resident population included only primary homeless.

The sex (male or female) of every individual was recorded in the census questionnaire.

For the imputed records, the sex was derived from the Personal Identification Code (CNP). The first value from this code represents the sex of the person).

Age is the interval of time between the date of birth and the reference date of the census, expressed in completed years of age.

For each person enumerated in the census form the exact date of birth (year, month, day) and Personal Numerical Code (CNP) were recorded. When the exact date of birth was not fulfilled, it was derived from the CNP: the six-th digits of CNP, starting with the second one, represent the date of birth (yymmdd).

The age in completed years was determined by automatic processing of data.

Marital status is defined as the (legal) conjugal status of each individual in relation to the marriage laws.

Registration of legal marital status was based on the declaration of the enumerated person, not on the basis of certificates.

The following classification of the population by legal marital status was:

 Never married

 Married

 Widowed and not remarried

 Divorced and not remarried

In 2011 the legal age for marriage in Romania was 18 years old, but in it was possible to marry starting with 16 years old for women, in special cases and having parents’ consent.

De facto marital status was recorded in a separate question. De facto marital was defined as the marital status of each individual in terms of his or her actual living arrangements within the household enumerated.

 In Romania, the registered /legal partnerships were not legally recognized by Law at the time of 2011 Census.

The family nucleus is defined as two or more persons who belong to the same household and who are related as husband and wife, as partners in a registered partnership, as partners in a consensual union, or as parent and child. A family comprises a couple without children or a couple with one or more children, or a lone parent with one or more children. This family concept limits relationships between children and adults to direct (first-degree) relationships, which are between parents and children.

Child (son/daughter) refers to a blood, step- or adopted son or daughter (regardless of age or marital status) who has usual residence in the household of at least one of the parents, and who has no partner or own children in the same household. Foster children are not included. A son or daughter who lives with a spouse, with a registered partner, with a partner in a consensual union, or with one or more own children, is not considered to be a child. A child who alternates between two households (for instance if his or her parents are divorced) shall consider the one where he or she spends the majority of the time as his or her household. Where an equal amount of time is spent with both parents the household shall be the one where the child is found at the time on census night.

The couples include married couples and couples who live in a consensual union.

Two persons are considered to be partners in a "consensual union" when they (i) belong to the same household, and (ii) they have a marriage-like relationship with each other, and (iii) are not married to or in a registered partnership with each other.

"Husband/wife couple" meant a married opposite-sex couple.

The following classification of the population living in families was used:

(1.0) Partner

(1.1) Husband in a married couple

(1.2) Wife in a married couple

(1.3) Male partner in a consensual union

(1.4) Female partner in a consensual union

(2.0) Lone parent

(2.1) Lone father

(2.2) Lone mother

(3.0) Child

(3.1) Child aged under 25

(3.1.1) Child of both partners

(3.1.2) Child of male partner only

(3.1.3) Child of female partner only

(3.1.4) Child of lone father

(3.1.5) Child of lone mother

(3.2.) Son/daughter aged 25 or over

(3.2.1) Son/daughter of both partners

(3.2.2) Son/daughter of male partner only

(3.2.3) Son/daughter of female partner only

(3.2.4) Son/daughter of lone father

We applied the "housekeeping concept" to identify private households.

Private household means the group of two or several persons (belonging to population) who usually lived together, generally relatives and who managed altogether (contributing to the supply and consumption of food and other key goods), entirely or partly participating in the income and expenditure budget.

It was also considered as private household the group of two or several persons who were not relatives but stated that, by consent, they lived and managed the household altogether, entirely or partly contributing in the income and expenditure budget.

Thus, the household also included elderly people or other persons under the household's care, children under family placement, hosted persons or those hired for housekeeping works, which usually lived and managed the household together with the other household members.

Persons who, on the Census reference date, were not belonging to a household and stated that they live and manage themselves alone, were considered as one-person households. The same criterion is valid for persons who, although were occupying a dwelling together with other persons, stated they were managing all by themselves.

The household status was determined based on the relationships between household members or family nucleus.

Current activity status refers to the relation in which the person is to economic and social activity, and the manner in which it provides the power necessary existence living in the reference week prior to the reference time (i.e. 13-19 October 2011).

Minimum age for economic activity in Romania is 18 years old or 16 years old, with parents consent, accordingly with Law no. 53/2003 – Labor Code.

"Employed" persons were all persons aged 15 years or over who during the reference week:

(a) performed at least one hour of work for pay or profit, in cash or in kind, or

(b) were temporarily absent from a job in which they had already worked and to which they maintained a formal attachment, or from a self-employment activity.

The following categories of people were considered as employed:

-           employees – persons who were carrying out their activity in an economic or social unit (irrespective of its ownership) base don a labor contract, either written or verbal, in exchange of remuneration as salary paid in cash or in kind, or as a commission, and so on;

-           persons who were working at their own enterprise (trading company);

-           authorized or unauthorized persons who were working on their own account - craftsmen, freelancers, retailers or independent service providers;

-           individual farmers who have worked at least 15 hours during the reference week in their own agricultural household, regardless of whether the products obtained were intended for sale, exchange or own consumption;

-           persons who were helping a member of the household (whether the later was working in its own unit or self-employed in a non-agricultural branch), even if they were not paid for this work;

-           persons who were helping a member of the household who was performing agricultural work even if they were not paid (were considered employed only if they had been working  at least 15 hours during the reference week);

-           persons who were working in family associations which carried out non-agricultural activities;

-           members of an agricultural company, a handcraft, consumer's and credit co-operative - who actually worked for these units;

-           “Requital” workers, namely, persons who work for friends, neighbors, etc. as part of a mutual exchange of work - the payment received represents the provision of labor inputs by someone else (barter of work);

Employees temporarily not at work were considered as in paid employment provided they had a formal job attachment. The possible reasons for such temporary absences are: illness or injury; holiday or vacation; strike or lock-out; educational or training leave; maternity or parental leave; reduction in economic activity; temporary disorganization or suspension of work due to such reasons as bad weather, mechanical or electrical breakdown, or shortage of raw materials or fuels; other temporary absence with or without leave.

The formal job attachment was determined on the basis of one or more of the following criteria: a continued receipt of wage or salary or an assurance of return to work following the end of the contingency.

(c) were not permanently employed in an economic or social activity (according to section a), but during 13–19 October 2011 were working exceptionally or occasionally, for at least an hour, to obtain an income or have helped a household member or a relative in the work the later was carrying out in its own enterprise, in practicing a trade, a profession or a service independently, even if they have not been paid for this;

(d) were seasonal employees not engaged in any kind of work during the off-season and own-account workers, if their absence from work was temporary and their undertaking continued to exist in the off-season;

(e) during the reference week 13–19 October 2011, were carrying out, occasionally or exceptionally, an agricultural activity for at least 15 hours;

(f) members of the military forces (persons enrolled in the army, including in the auxiliary services),

(g) Romanian citizens who worked abroad for foreign economic and social units and were having the usual residence in Romania, absent for a period of up to 12 months (temporarily absent), including those daily crossing the border to work).

The following were not considered employed:

-           persons who conducted only charitable and voluntary activities;

-           persons who conducted only domestic work in their own household;

-           persons in detention, even if they did provide some activities during detention.

The "unemployed" comprise all persons aged from 15 to 74 years who, during the reference period (13 to 19 October 2011), were meeting the following conditions:

-           did not have a job and were not carrying out a for-profit activity;

-           were seeking for work and, during the last 4 weeks had actively sought for a job;

-           were available for starting work within the following 2 weeks if a job would have been found immediately.

Actively seeking for a job involves the use of specific methods to find employment, such as:

-         registration at the Employment Agency;

-         registration at private recruitmentagencies;

-         undergoing tests, interviews or examinations;

-         steps to start a freelance work;

-         launching or answering advertisements.

Two categories of unemployed were recorded:

1. Unemployed seeking for another workplace - those persons aged 15 to 74 who previously had a workplace (which they lost or left) and were meeting the conditions to be unemployed;
2. b.      Unemployed seeking work for the first time – were considered those unemployed who had never worked (had never been employed in an economic- social activity paid in cash or in kind until the reference date of the Census), but who were actually seeking for their first workplace on the Census reference date (graduates from primary and middle schools, vocational schools, higher education institutions, homemakers who have never worked, etc.).

Population not usually active included persons who had the following current activity status:

• Pupils/students– persons who weren't carrying out an economic or social activity and stated were attending a (public or private) educational institution, regardless of the level, with a view to training or learning a profession. This category did not include the persons aged 15 and over who were attending an education institution and who were simultaneously carrying out an economic or social activity which brought them an income (as they were considered part of the employed population).
• Pension recipients – persons who benefited from a pension of any kind (pension for age limit, early retirement pension or partial early retirement, social welfare - pension type, pensions for veterans, successor's pension, etc.) and who did not fall into the category of employed or unemployed. This category did not include pupils/students and pre-school children who benefited from a successor's pension.
• Homemakers – persons aged 15 and over who, usually, irrespective of gender, only carried out household activities in their own household (preparing the meals, cleaning, taking care of the children and educating them) or in that of a relative and who did not have their own source of income.
• Supported by other persons – persons who didn't have a job or any occupation that would get them an income, being supported by parents, relatives or other persons and who did not fall under the category of homemakers, unemployed or who weren't attending an educational institution.

In this category were included children, old persons, persons with disabilities, persons below 15 years old who did not attend school, even if they carried-out domestic works without pay, supported by other persons.

• Supported by the State or by private organizations – persons supported by public institutions (old people's houses, hospital- hostels, children's houses, etc.) or by private organizations (nongovernmental organizations).

Persons whose only source of income was the social aid (for instance, people with disabilities supported by relatives or by other persons and for whom the State pays an allowance or a salary to their supporters) were also included.

• Supported from other sources – persons whose unique source of income were the earnings obtained from rents, interest, land lease, copyrights, etc.
• Persons with other economic status – people who do not fit into any of the above categories: people with no income, seasonal workers in off-season who haven’t kept a formal job attachment, persons in detention, people detained for investigations, etc.

Persons below the national minimum age for economic activity were included in the category "Currently not economically active".

Priority was given to the status of "employed" in preference to "unemployed", and to the status of "unemployed" in preference to "not economically active" in the case of persons with multiple activity status.

Occupation is the type of useful economical or social activity, which brings an income (in cash or in kind), performed by a person during the reference week.

Occupation was collected for persons aged 15 or over that were:

- employed during the reference week, or

- unemployed during the reference week, but have ever been in employment.

according to the occupation they had during their current employment (for employed persons) or according to the occupation they had in their last employment (for unemployed).

The main occupation actually performed on the job and not profession achieved by studies or qualification was recorded for people employed and unemployed looking for a new job.

The classification of occupations, used at the 2011 Population and Housing Census, provided the necessary information for the distribution of labor force, by groups and sub-groups of socio-professional occupations and for the characterization of the population socio-economic structure. The Classification of Occupations in Romania (COR) is part of the unitary system of classifications and nomenclatures, used in the national statistical system and has been harmonized according to the International Standard Classification ISCO – 08.

Industry (branch of economic activity) refers to the kind of production or activity of the establishment or similar unit in which the job(s) of the economically active person (whether employed or unemployed) was located during the time-reference period established for data on economic characteristics.

Distribution by industry (activities of national economy) was based on the main activity of the job declared by the enumerated person.

The job was defined as the economic-social unit or the last organizational structure (sub-unit) such as a factory, department, workshop, store etc., in which a certain kind of activity is carried out, distinctly highlighted within the unit.

• The main activity of the job within the unit (sub-unit) was considered to be the activity carried out at the job (not the specific activity of the enumerated person), respectively of:

- the unit(company, administration, enterprise, institution, cooperative, organization, association, etc.), if the enumerated person performed its occupation in an economic-social unit without sub-units or in the functional or administrative services of this unit;

-  the sub-unit,ifthe enumerated person declared to actually work in a sub-unit (factory, station, workshop, store, computing department, transportation base, dining, etc.).

The active persons were grouped by industry, depending on:

¨          the basic activity of the economic-social unit, in case the unit didn't have other sub-units;

¨          the activity of the sub-unit - plant, factory, department, computing department, transportation base, dining, store, kindergarten, club, clinic or medical office, etc. - if such a sub-unit was stated by the enumerated persons as their job;

¨          the main activity of the economic-social unit - for leaders or for persons who carried out auxiliary activities (marketing, consultancy, supply-sales, accounting, administrative activities, etc.).

Persons working at home for economic-social units, on the basis of a contract (commitment to work) were included in the activity of the unit they worked for.

The own-account workers were included in the industry, depending on the main activity they were carrying out, based on the occupation they stated.

The distribution of persons by industry was made according to the Classification of Activities in the National Economy (CAEN - Rev.2), approved by NIS President’s Order no. 337/2007, at the level of sections and divisions and it represents the national version of NACE - Rev. 2.

Status in employment represents one's position in relation to the socio-economic work carried out and the way of achieving earnings, based on the occupation carried out at work.

Depending on the status in employment, the persons were included into one of the following situations:

• Employees–persons carrying out their activity within an economic or social unit (irrespective of ownership) or for individuals, based on an employment contract, in exchange of a remuneration by salaries (in cash or in kind payment) or paid by commissions, etc. This category also includes those entrepreneurs who were employees in their unit, employees with contracts on a continuous basis with the same individual for housework (housekeeping, care of a child or an old man, etc.), apprentices, priests and pastors;
• Employers–persons carrying out their activity within their own unit, having one or several permanent employees, and who, in turn, were not employees. This category also includes the holders of concession or commercial leasing contracts, hiring employees;
• Own-account workers – persons carrying out their activity on their own account and not engaged, on a continuous basis, any employees:

- artisans with their own workshop (tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, painters, etc.);

- craftsmen, freelancers, independent retailers or service providers;

- persons who performed commercial activities independently within their own unit (stores, kiosks, etc.) or street vendors (in fairs, markets, cattle fairs, on the street);

- independent service providers (taxi drivers, employed carriers, etc.);

- freelancers (physicians having their own cabinet, lawyers, musicians, artists, independent accountants, translators, etc.) - paid directly by the population;

- individual farmers (mostly heads of household, if they were working in their own agricultural household);

- holders of concession or commercial leasing contracts not using employees;

- persons who were providing services at the customers home occasionally (cleaning, cutting wood, caring for children, the elderly, etc.).

• Members of producers' co-operative – persons who were members of an agricultural holding, craftsmen, consumption or credit co-operative and who carried out their activity within thereof, achieving non-wage income;
• Contributing family workers (without pay) – persons who usually helped a household member or a relative (either working within his/her own commercial company or as an own-account worker) and got no remuneration for the carried out activity; this category also included individual farmers’ family members working within his own agricultural household;
• Other– persons who could not be included in any of the above mentioned situations or for whom there were not sufficient information on their status in employment (occasional daily workers, etc.).

For persons doing more than one job a status in employment was allocated based on their main job, which was identified according to: the time spent on the job or, if not available, the income received.

Place of work is the location in which a currently employed person performed his or her main job.

To geographically locate the job, unit’s or subunit’s address where the person was engaged in the occupation was declared by enumerated persons and recorded in the questionnaire, namely:

-  in the country - in the locality of enumeration or in other locality (county, municipality / town / commune);

- in another country - if the job was in another country (name of the country concerned).

Particular cases:

-  if a person was working in a department store belonging to a commercial enterprise (which owned several stores), the locality of employment was considered to be that where the shop was located in;

-  for people working on their own and did not have a fixed place where they worked in (were working at the clients, as vendors, in fairgrounds, etc.), the locality in which they had their usual residence was envisaged;

-  for the employed who did not have a fixed place of work (drivers, transportation related maritime personnel, salesmen, etc.), job’s locality was considered that of the unit or subunit where they were employed.

Educational attainment refers to the highest level successfully completed in the educational system where the education was received, attested by a certificate or diploma. The information was recorded for persons born before January 2002. For people who completed two or more educational institutions of the same level only one of them was recorded, according to the free statement of  the respondents.

The information was collected using an open question, the person declared the name and the profile of the educational unit the person successfully completed was recorded. The answers were coded using  Nomenclature of educational institutions.

Accordingly to Law no. 351 from 6 July 2001, the locality is defined as the form of stable settlement of population in territory, making a nuclei of human life, with different structure and size, being differentiated depending on specificity of people’s dominant production activities, characteristics of territorial-administrative organization, number of inhabitants, features of buildings fund, degree of social, cultural and technical-urbanistic endowment.

In hypercubes, localities were classified according to the following size-classes:

1. 1.000.000 or more inhabitants

2. 500.000 – 999.999

3. 200.000 – 499.999

4. 100.000 – 199.999

5. 50.000 – 99.999

6. 20.000 – 49.999

7. 10.000 – 19.999

8. 5.000 – 9.999

9. 2.000 – 4.999

10. 1.000 – 1.999

11. 500 - 999

12. 200 - 499

13. localities with less than 200 inhabitants 

The number of inhabitants took into consideration usual resident population of the locality.

We breakdown data by area (urban, rural), macro-regions, development regions, counties, towns and communes in printed tabulation.

We used the administrative division of Romania, defined by the Law no.2/1968 regarding the administrative and territorial organization of Romania.

According with Romanian Constitution, Romanian territory is organized, from an administrative point of view, in communes, towns and counties.

The county is composed from towns and communes – basic units of administrative-territorial organization of the country – depending of geographical economical, ethnical, social, and political conditions and cultural and traditional links of population.

The town represents a population center which is more developed in economic, social, cultural and urban-household terms.

The commune means the administrative-territorial unit comprising the rural population connected through a community of interests and traditions, and consisting of one or more villages, according to the existing economic, socio-cultural, geographic and demographic conditions. Establishment of the village provides rural localities with economic, social, cultural and household development.

In addition to its administrative division into counties, Romania is also divided into eight development regions corresponding to the NUTS 2 territorial level of the European Union. Romania’s development regions are named after their geographical location in the country and are as follows: Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast, South, West, Center, and Bucharest-Ilfov, respectively.

Information on the "Place of birth" was collected according to the place of usual residence of the mother at the time of the birth, or, if not available, the place in which the birth took place. Information on the country of birth was collected on the basis of international boundaries existing on 1 January 2011.

For totally imputed records the place of usual residence of the mother at the time of the birth was substituted for the place where the birth took place.

Citizenship was defined as the particular legal bond between an individual and his/her State, acquired by birth or naturalization, whether by declaration, option, marriage or other means according to the national legislation.

A person with two or more citizenships was allocated to only one country of citizenship, using the following order of precedence:

1. Romanian citizenship or

2. other EU Member State citizenship, if the person does not have Romanian citizenship or

3. other country outside the European Union citizenship, if the person does not have Romanian or another EU Member State citizenship.

In order to collect information on this topic, individuals were also asked whether they have ever had a usual residence abroad.

For those who ever resided abroad, the year and month of arrival in the locality of usual residence was collected. The year of arrival was defined as the calendar year in which a person most recently established usual residence in Romania.

The place of residence at a specified date in the past is the smallest administrative unit, or a foreign country, in which the individual resided one year before the census.

Housing arrangements is defined as the type of housing where a person is a usual resident at the time of the census. This covers all persons who are usual residents in different types of living quarters, or who do not have a usual residence and stay temporarily in living quarters, or are roofless persons sleeping rough or in emergency shelters when the census was taken.

The following classification by housing arrangement was used:

1. Households/ persons (with a usual residence) living in a conventional dwelling;

2. Households/ persons (with a usual residence) living in an other housing unit – hut, cabin, shack, caravan, houseboat, or a barn, mill, cave or other shelter used for human habitation at the time of the census ;

3. Households/ persons (with a usual residence) living in a collective living quarter – a hotel, institution, camp, etc;

4. Persons who are not usual residents in any living quarter category, such as homeless or other people moving between temporary accommodations.

The 2011 Population and Dwelling Census recorded only primary homeless. The Person questionnaire (P questionnaire) included a special question coding if the enumerated person is a homeless person or not.

Homeless persons were enumerated as present persons in the places were they were found by enumerators, not being related to any household. For each homeless person a P questionnaire was fulfilled which:

- it was related to a collective living quarter questionnaire (SC- questionnaire)– if that person was found in a collective living quarter (night shelter, urgencyCity hall center, hospitals etc.),

- it was not related to any living unit (dwelling or collective living quarter), if the enumerator found the homeless person on the street, in sewerage system etc.

A family nucleus was defined as two or more persons who live in the same household and who are related as husband and wife, as cohabiting partners, as a marital (registered) or as parent and child. Thus a family comprises a couple without children, or a couple with one or more children, or a lone parent with one or more children. 

The household questionnaire recorded in the relationship matrix:

- each person’s relation ship with the reference person and

- each person’s mother, father and husband/partner identification number

A family nucleus was one of the following types:

(a) a married couple/ couple living in consensual union without children;

(b) a married couple / couple living in consensual union with one or more un-married children;

(c) one parent (a father or a mother) with one or more children;

The married couple included persons who stated they were legally married.

The couple living in consensual unionincluded persons who stated they live in consensual union, irrespective of their legal marital status, provided that the partner belongs to the same household.

The composition of family nucleus took into account all children, regardless of age, who lived with both parents or just with one of them, who, in turn, did not have a spouse or partner, and had no children within the same household.

Consensual unions were treated in the same way as legal marriages, and children born in such unions or belonging to only one of the partners were treated in the same way as those from legally set families, being considered as relatives in relation with the household head as in the case of officially married persons households.

Children belonging to only one of the spouses / partners, as well as the adopted children who were considered the same as the natural children of the couple, provided they were living with the spouses / partners were also part of the family nucleus;

There were also considered members of the family nucleus the children who were married but, on census reference date, were divorced or widowed, and came back to their parents' household, provided that they hadn’t any children of their own or partners within the household.

Other persons not making up a family nucleuscould live within a household, being either related or not to the head of the household.

Children in foster care were not considered as part of a family nucleus, as they fall under the category of people unrelated to the household head.

In hypercubes we used the following nuclei breakdown:

1. Married couple families without resident children
2. Consensual union couples families
3. Lone father families
4. Lone mother families

In Romania, the couples in registered partnership were not recognized by Law in 2011 (in the census period).

The family nuclei were classified in printed tables as:

-       a married couple without children

-       a married couple with at least one child younger than 25 years old

-       a married couple with all children older than 25 years old (age 25 included)

-       a couple living in consensual union without children

-       a couple living in consensual union with at least one child younger than 25 years old

-       a couple living in consensual union with all children older than 25 years old (age 25 included)

-       lone father with at least one child younger than 25 years old

-       lone father with all children older than 25 years old (age 25 included)

-       lone mother with at least one child younger than 25 years old

-       lone mother with all children older than 25 years old (age 25 included)

Each of these categories was disaggregated into two sub-categories:

- without other persons

- with other persons

Family nuclei were classified by size according to the total number of resident members of the family. Family nuclei were also classified according to the total number of resident children in the family, number of employed persons and number of persons supported by other members of the family in the printed tables.

The private household was defined such as:

a) A one-person household, that is a person who lives alone in a separate housing unit or who occupies, as a lodger, a separate room (or rooms) of a housing unit but does not join with any of the other occupants of the housing unit to form part of a multiperson household as defined below; or

b) A multi-person household, which is a group of two or more persons who combine to occupy the whole or part of a housing unit and to provide themselves with food and possibly other essentials for living.

The following classification of private households by type was used:

1. Non-family households

1.1 One-person households

1.2 Multi-person households

2. One-family households

2.1 Husband-wife couples without resident children

2.1.1 Without other persons

2.1.2 With other persons

2.2 Husband-wife couples with at least one resident child under 25

2.2.1 Without other persons

2.2.2 With other persons

2.3 Husband-wife couples, youngest resident son/daughter 25 or older

2.3.1 Without other persons

2.3.2 With other persons

2.4 Cohabiting couples without resident children

2.4.1 Without other persons

2.4.2 With other persons

2.5 Cohabiting couples with at least one resident child under 25

2.5.1 Without other persons

2.5.2 With other persons

2.6 Cohabiting couples, youngest resident son/daughter 25 or older

2.6.1 Without other persons

2.6.2 With other persons

2.7 Lone fathers with at least one resident child under 25

2.7.1 Without other persons

2.7.2 With other persons

2.8 Lone fathers, youngest resident son/daughter 25 or older

2.8.1 Without other persons

2.8.2 With other persons

2.9 Lone mothers with at least one resident child under 25

2.9.1 Without other persons

2.9.2 With other persons

2.10 Lone mothers, youngest resident son/daughter 25 or older

2.10.1 Without other persons

2.10.2 With other persons

3. Two or more-family households

Private households were classified by size according to the total number of usual resident members in the household.

This topic refers to the arrangements under which a private household occupies all or part of a housing unit.

In view to classify buildings by ownership types, the variable was collected as: privateownership, public ownership, private group ownership, religious cultsownership, the same criteria used for classifying dwellings by ownership type were taken into account, if all dwellings in the building had the same ownership type.

• Individual private – private owned dwellings population's (including those purchased in installments and ongoing payment);
• Public – for dwellings under management of municipalities, ministries and other central bodies of the public sector and of their subordinated units, including social housing company housing, and dwellings marked historic monuments;

                     – for dwellings expropriated by decree before 1989, not being demolished and now having no legal owner, and whose owners were compensated at that time, by receiving other dwellings;

• Shared private – for dwellings owned by private capital social and entities operators, by real estate developers, etc.;
• Co-operative – for dwellings owned by consumer and handicraft cooperatives, unaltered agricultural cooperatives and associations, credit unions, etc.;
• Associative – for dwellings owned by non-profit organizations and associations (professional associations, writers, composers, political parties, trade unions, charities, foundations, etc.); in this category were not included dwellings belonging to the owners' associations and block lodgers’ associations, respectively;
• Owned by a religious cult – for dwellings owned by religious cults: institutions, parishes, communities, monasteries, etc.

Equity’s predominance wastaken into account when dealing with joint ownership dwellings (public - private property, public property - religious cults’ property, etc.).

The classification of households by tenure status was the following:

1 Households where at least one member of household owns housing unit;

2 Households were at least one member of household rents all or a part of housing unit;

3 Households occupying all or part of a housing unit under other form of tenure;

4 Not stated

 Living quarters are those housing types, which are the usual residences of one or more persons. Type of living quarters relate to occupied conventional dwellings, other housing units and collective living quarters.

A conventional dwelling was defined as an occupied conventional dwelling if it was a usual residence of one or more persons at the census reference date.

Other housing units were defined as the living quarters mobile, semi-permanent or improvised, or not inittialy designed for human habitation, but they were used for human habitation at the census reference date (it was used as usual residence by at least one person). Examples of other housing units: huts, cabins, caravans, houseboats, caves or other shelters.

Collective living quarters consisted of one or more distinct buildings located at the same address and intended for living, for different time periods by relatively large groups of people generally unrelated by kinship, which usually gathered for common purposes and interests and could share certain places and facilities (bathrooms, kitchens, dining rooms, etc.)

For each of the collective living quarters, ​​the appropriate classification of their type was made. They may be hostel (institution)-type, hotel-type or camp-type.

1. Hostel (institution) collective living quarters is considered to be the set of separate and independent premiseswhichconsisted of one or more permanent buildings -  under a single administration and located at the same address – which, by the way they were built, rebuilt or transformed, were intended for living for different time periods by several persons present or temporarily absent,generally unrelated by kinship, but who gathered for shared interests and purposes and shared certain places and facilities (bathrooms, kitchens, dining rooms, toilets and so on). Hostel collective living quarters include:

• Students hostels
• Workers’ hostels, homes for single, such as:

- workers' hostels, homes for single, bedrooms for the workers, including those in unfinished blocks;

- boarding houses organized in some households for a total of at least 5 people coming to town for an extended period;

• Nursing homes, rest homes, hospital homes, sanatoria for incurable diseases, preventoria:  hospital homes, homes for people with disabilities, psychiatric institutions, retirement homes, sanatoria and convalescent homes, sanatoria for incurable diseases (for example: mental patients, etc.);
• Child protection institutions: children's homes orphanages, foster centers (including the family-type ones and those for children with severe disabilities), maternity centers, children’s emergency treatment centers, recovery and rehabilitation centers for disabled minors / young people, occupational therapy integration centers, boarding schools - kindergartens, schools, vocational schools, secondary schools and special school centers, health units / hospital departments;
  • Religious institutions:  monasteries, settlements, parishes, communities, etc.;
  • Other collective living quarters:  other premises that could not be classified above (reformatories, etc.).

The following were not considered hostel collective living quarters:

¨        nurseries and kindergartens, whether they had a daily or weekly operating regime;

¨        hostels where workers, the technical, economic or other specialized staff lived with their families (which were registered as dwellings).

Particular cases:

The following were not considered collective living quarters, but only as dwellings and buildings, respectively:

¨        boarding houses organized in some households which provided accommodation and meals for less than 5 people coming to town for an extended period;

¨        cells and monasteries’ buildings inhabited individually by monks or nuns, who were not eating together and were not sharing any premises and facilities.

2. Hotel collective living quarters representsa separate and independent set of premises comprising one or several permanent buildings - under a single administration, at the same address - which, by the way it has been built, rebuilt or converted, was designed to provide accommodation on a fee basis (examples: hotels, inns, hospitals, etc.). Hotel collective living quarters include:

• Hotels, motels, inns, tourist lodges, tourist stops

- including camping and tourist maisonette units, holiday village, hostels, tourist stops, etc.

- bedrooms used by transportation related personnel (SNCFR, TAROM, etc.) in transit, and vessels used as Hotel collective living quarters.

• Guest houses, guest rooms, tourist villas- including bungalows, rural (agro-touristic) boarding houses, etc.
• Boarding schools, school hostels
• Hospitals:  stationary and preventoria, bedded dispensaries, deliveries homes, etc.
• Emergency centers and night shelters - emergency reception centers or person recovery center - Victims of domestic violence, homeless centers, etc.

3.  The following were considered camp collective living quarters: camps for distressed; refugee centers; holiday camps; camps for housing workers employed by agriculture, logging, mining, construction or other enterprises etc. Such collective living quarters usually have certain common shared facilities such as cooking and toilet facilities, baths, lounge rooms or dormitories.

Occupancy status refers to whether or not a conventional dwelling was occupied by a usual resident at the time of the census reference date.

Occupied conventional dwellings were the conventional dwellings which were the usual residence of one or more persons at the census reference date.

Unoccupied conventional dwellings were conventional dwellings which were not the usual residence of any person at the time of the census reference date.

Conventional dwellings with persons present in the census reference date but not included in the census population were classified under the category "Dwellings reserved for seasonal or secondary use".

This topic refers to the type of ownership of dwellings and not that of the land on which the dwelling stands.

It was derived by combined two variables: dwelling’s type of ownership and the way in which the household occupy that dwelling.

In hypercubes, the dwellings were classified as:

1. owner-occupied dwellings

2. dwellings in co-operative ownership

3. rented dwellings

4. dwellings in other types of ownership

The number of occupants of a living quarter is the number of people for whom the living quarter was the usual residence at the census reference date.

Useful floor space was defined as the floor space measured inside the outer walls excluding non-habitable cellars and attics and, in multi-dwelling buildings, all common spaces.

A living room was considered to be a space in a housing unit of a size of 4 square meters at least (the premises being enough to hold a bed for an adult), and at least 2 meters high over the major area of the ceiling and which receives natural light either directly through windows and / or exterior doors or indirectly by verandas, through windows and / or doors or through other living rooms with French doors.

The destination of living rooms was established taking into account their destination given by their initial construction, but also the main use of the room in question.

For determining the number of living rooms, the following were considered living rooms:

¨        bedrooms, dinning rooms, guest rooms, study rooms (library rooms), rooms in attics, inhabitable cellars, service rooms (housekeepers rooms), as well as the corridors meeting the conditions related to area, height and lightening of a living room and were used for habitation, not only as passing premises;

¨        double use room (kitchen and living room) within a dwelling consisting of several rooms was considered either a living room or a kitchen, depending on the original purpose and not by its use;

¨        room used both for sleeping and food preparation within a one-room dwelling was considered a living room (e.g. apartments / comfort III flats);

¨        room designed for habitation, equipped with a kitchen corner.

The following were not considered living rooms:

¨        kitchens whose area exceeded 4 sq.m.;

¨        corridors, verandas, utilitarian rooms (laundries, drying rooms) and vestibules;

¨        bathrooms, toilets, even if exceeding 4 sq.m;

¨        outbuildings and other spaces inside the dwelling (kitchens, fixed baths, toilets, verandas, vestibules, anterooms, marquises, entrance halls, uninhabitable halls - which did not meet the conditions related to area, height and lightening of a living room, passage ways, corridors, service rooms, pantries, lumber rooms, loggia, boxes, etc.) though inhabited;

¨        rooms within dwellings specifically designed by construction to be used for living, but which, on the enumeration date, were used for business purposes by the households occupying them, as well as the rooms the owner of the dwelling made available to the institutions, firms, companies, tour operators.

Rooms used for business purposes were those rooms inside a dwelling, designed by construction to be used for living, but which, on the census reference date, were used by households occupying the dwelling or by firms, commercial companies, tour operators (based on a contract concluded with the dwelling’s owner) for other purposes than living (e.g. rooms changed by owners in medical cabinets, lawyers offices, shops, pawn shops, hairdresser's, etc.) were considered rooms used only for professional purposes.

Density standard was derived as the useful floor space in square metres divided by the number of occupants in a housing unit.

Rooms used only for business and professional purposes were counted separately and its were included when number of rooms in a housing unit was calculated.

Density standard was calculated from useful floor space in square metres.

We use the following classification for occupied conventional dwellings and other housing units by type of water supply system:

1. Piped water in the housing unit

1.1 From a community scheme

1.2 From a private source (own system)

2. No piped water in the housing unit

2.1 Piped water available within the building but outside the housing unit

2.1.1 From a community scheme

2.1.2 From a private source (own system)

2.2 Piped water available outside the building

2.2.1 From a community scheme

2.2.2 From a private source (own system)

2.3 No piped water available

If the house uses two types of water supply it was taken into account only those who ensured a high level of home comfort.

It was considered the dwelling had water closet facility if it was equipped with water tank and outlet channel, whether it is located inside the bath or in a separate room in the house or outside the house.

We use the following classification for occupied conventional dwellings and other housing units by toilet facilities:

1. Flush toilet

- in the housing unit

- outside the housing unit,

- within the building

- outside the building

2. No flush toilet, other type of toilet available

- in the housing unit

- outside the housing unit,

- within the building

- outside the building

3. No Toilet available (of any kind)

The bathroom is the room located inside or outside the dwelling, designed to ensure the personal hygiene whilst having specific installations for this purpose: bathtub with / without shower; only shower and sink. Endowment with bathroom installation requires certain facilities that have fixed connections to a water supply source and to a drain that comes out from the building.

Was considered a bathroom:

-  room equipped with relating facilities (bathtub with / without shower, or only shower and sink);

- room equipped with relating facilities (shower and sink), even if it was primarily used for other purposes (laundry);

- room which intended for this destination and endowed with water and sanitation installation, but which, at that moment, lacked the specific sanitary appliances (bathtub, shower, sink, etc.) and was not used for other purposes;

- room inside the dwelling where personal hygiene was performed by traditional means that were specific to certain regions (steam baths) and which was not used for other purposes on a permanent basis (e.g. as kitchen, laundry, etc.).

Was not considered a bathroomthe room having only a sink and used primarily for other purposes (bedroom, kitchen, laundry, etc.).

Dwellings’bathroom facilities were shown in tables according to their location:

•    inside the dwelling;
•    outside the dwelling, but inside the building;
•   outside the dwelling, and outside the building. 

Dwelling’s type of heating was determined according to the main type of energy used.

It was considered that the dwelling had central heating if the heating was provided by means of:

§    District Heating - heating was provided through the thermal units, which were taking over thermal agent from power plants, factories and so on, and were carrying it into the radiator system (radiators), usually reaching inside a large number of dwellings; neighborhood thermal plants (local heating) were also included in this group;

§    Own central heating -if the dwelling had a heating system built inside the building or dwelling, regardless of the source of energy used; dwellings heated by means of their own heating stations - namely those located in buildings with their own system for heat generation (steam, hot water), and a system for the distribution thereof inside the dwelling - were classified according to the type of energy source used:gas from the public network, liquefied gas - gas cylinder, LPG tank, solid fuel, oil fuel - own heating plants using oil or geothermal water as heat carrier; other type of energy used - installations using solar energy for heating (solar panels with / without glass, solar panels using vacuum tubes, photovoltaic solar panels, etc.), wind power, and, respectively, ground-water, water-water, air-water heat pumps.

The dwelling had no central heating, the heating being provided by means of: cooker - with gas from the public network, liquefied gas (cylinder); stove (fireplace) - with gas from the public network, liquefied gas (cylinder), solid fuel, liquid fuel, electricity - electric hot plate, electric radiator, electric fireplace, air conditioning, electric convectors, etc., or by other means of heating - gas convectors, hot water convectors, etc.

Dwellings fitted with different heating systems were recorded with the type mostly used.

It was considered that there was no heating in dwellings that were disconnected from the district heating network, lacked their own central systems, and used none of the above mentioned means of heating.

We collect information regarding the type of heating using the following classification:

1. Central heating

1.1 District heating (from a central heating station, i.e. community heating centre)

1.2 Central heating from an installation in the housing unit or in the building with

1.2.1  gas from a public network

1.2.2  liquefied gas (gas cylinder)

1.2.3  solid fuel

1.2.4  liquid fuel

1.2.5  another type of energy used

2. No central heating; the heating is provided by

2.3.1 A cooker with

1.3.1.1 gas from the public network

                        1.3.1.2 liquefied gas (gas cylinder)

2.3.2 A stove (fi replace) with

                        2.3.2.1 gas from the public network

2.3.2.2 liquefied gas (gas cylinder)

2.3.2.3 solid fuel             

2.3.2.4 liquid fuel

2.3.3 Electric energy

2.3.4 Another type of heating

3. No heating at all

A building was defined as an independent structure containing one or more dwellings, rooms or other spaces, covered by a roof and enclosed within external walls or dividing walls which extend from the foundations to the roof, whether designed for residential or for agricultural, commercial, industrial or cultural purposes or for the provision of services, and which is spatially isolated (outstripped) or separated by others.

Both the characteristics of residential and nonresidential buildings where at least a conventional dwelling was located in and the number of buildings containing collective living quarters were recorded in LC – dwelling, building questionnaire.

Buildings where conventional dwellings were located in were grouped by their type, as follows: residential buildings and non-residential buildings.

Residential buildings included building intended by construction for being inhabited by a single or several households (one-dwelling houses and two-or-more dwellings houses), as well as buildings in collective living quarters and provided with dwellings.

The following residential buildings were considered: buildings used for habitation entirely or at the largest share, one-dwelling houses of which only one room or part of living rooms was given for use and buildings with multiple dwellings where only some apartments were occupied.

whilst observing classification specified below:

• Detached house - house was not attached to other buildings (e.g. buildings with a one level or multi-level dwelling, two-dwelling buildings if they are imbricated (ground floor and first floor);
• Duplex house -semidetached building with two attached dwellings (located one after the other), each with its having own entrance to the building;
• Row or terraced house  - building with at least three attached dwellings or connected with each other, each with separate access to the outside;
• Block of flats - residential building that had at least two floors with 3 or more dwellings (apartments), grouped around a common access staircase;
• Building designed for collective living quarters in which dwellings are situated in - building consisting of hostel-type collective living quarters (student dormitories, nursing homes, monasteries, etc.), hotel-type (tourist lodges, hospitals, etc.), or camp-type (distressed camps, refugee centers, holiday camps etc.), where at least one housing was located in. This category also included the buildings under construction that consisted of collective living quarters and where dwellings were already inhabited.

Non-residential buildings were considered to be those buildings intended for commercial, industrial, cultural purposes (office buildings, factories, warehouses, leisure centers, shops, etc.) where at least one dwelling was located in, including those under construction where dwellings were already inhabited.

The construction year was considered to be the year of building’s commissioning.

Period in which the building was constructed was recorded in the census dwelling and building questionnaire, provided that it had been built before 1970. The construction year was recorded if the construction year was after 1970.

In respect of the printed tables, the breakdown’s groups corresponding to the building construction period were considered (if it was built before 1970): before year 1919, 1919 – 1945, 1946 – 1960, 1961 – 1970, and the groups 1971 – 1980, 1981 – 1990, 1991 – 2000, 2001 – 2005, 2006 – 2011 corresponding to the buildings constructed after year 1970.

Forbuildings which, following their erection, wereenlarged by adding areas or floors the year when the original building was finished was considered as construction year. If the area of newly built up inhabitable spaces (expressed in newly built area) exceeded that of the original building, the year when the new construction (the floors addition) was finished was taken into account.

For the buildings rebuilt (transformed) more than 50% of the original building capacity, the rebuilding year was considered the construction year.

The 2011 Population and Dwelling Census had as observation units: persons, dwellings, buildings for human habitation, other buildings in which at least one person has usual residence, households and families.

Statistical population is referring to the persons who had the usual residence in Romania for a period of 12 months or more in the census reference date or who established the usual residence inside Romania for less than 12 months but had the intention to stay at least 12 months.

The Census was carried-out in all Romanian territory, without any exception.

Data refers to the 2011 Population and Dwelling Census.

The census reference date was 20-th October 2011.

Not aplicable

Not aplicable

 Legal background

The legal basis for conducting the Population and Housing Census is provided by:

- Law No 677/2001 on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of. Personal Data and the Free Movement of Such Data

-  Regulation (EC) no 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on population and housing censuses;

-Commission Regulation (EC) no 1201/2009 of 30 November 2009 implementing Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on population and housing cesuses as regards the technical specifications of the topics and of their breakdowns;

- Commission Regulation (EU) no 519/2010 of 16 June 2010 adopting the programme of the statistical data and of the metadata for population and housing censuses provided for by Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council;

- Commission Regulation (EU) no 1151/2010 of 8 December 2010 implementing Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on  population and housing censuses, as regards the modalities and structure of the quality reports and the technical format for data transmission;

- The Conference of European Statisticians – Recommendations for the 2010 Round of Population and Housing Censuses

- Government Ordinance no 36/2007 on the conducting of the 2011 Population and Housing Census in Romania approved with amendments by Law No 5/2008;

- Government Decision no 1502/2009 on the organization and conduct of the 2011 Population and Housing Census in Romania. Pursuant to Government Decision No 1502/2009 on the organization and conduct of the 2011 Population and Housing Census, additional personnel shall be employed for a specified period in order to carry out this statistical research.

- Government Decision no 1251/2010 amending Government Decision No 1502/2009 on the organization and conduct of the 2011 Population and Housing Census in Romania.

-  Government Decision no 1324/2010 amending Government Decision No 1502/2009 on the organization and conduct of the 2011 Population and Housing Census in Romania.

- Government Decision no 922/2011 amending Government Decision No 1502/2009 on the organization and conduct of the 2011 Population and Housing Census in Romania.

- Emergency Ordinance no 34/2011 amending and supplementing Government Ordinance No 36/2007 on the conducting of the 2011 Population and Housing Census in Romania.

- Law no 170/2011 approving Government Emergency Ordinance No 34/2011 amending and supplementing the Government Ordinance No 36/2007 on the conducting of the 2011 Population and Housing Census in Romania.

- NIS rules on statistical confidentiality

- Confidentiality policy

Pursuant to Emergency Ordinance 36/2007, the body responsible with the preparation, conduct, coordination, and monitoring of the work needed for carrying out the 2011 Population and Housing Census (hereinafter referred to as “Census”) was the Central Commission for Population and Housing Census. The main responsibilities of this Commission were as follows:

a) to approve the overall Census organization program, schedule and methodology for data recording and processing, as well as the schedule for publishing the results;

b) to make recommendations following the consultations undertaken to develop the draft Government Decision on the Census reference moment,  the registration period, the Census budget, the organizational structure and staffing, necessary for the activities program to carry out the Census and process the Census results;

c) to approve the registration forms and instructions for filling thereof;

d) to approve the classifications and nomenclatures required for the registration and processing of Census data, except those approved by Government decisions;

e) to approve the instructions and the organization manner and to guide the actions and operations to divide the territory of the administrative-territorial units into Census sectors;

f) to coordinate the recruitment and training of all personnel involved in conducting the Census works;

g) to approve the Census publicity schedule;

h) to present to the Government and publish the Census preliminary results.

Pursuant to Article 5 of Law No 5/2008, the organization and carrying out of the Census were performed in technical and methodological terms by the National Institute of Statistics, under the coordination and control of the Population and Housing Census’s Central Commission, according to the Recommendations of the European Union, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe rules in the field of Population and Housing Census.

The Commission for Population and Housing Census consisted of:

Chairperson             - Minister of Interior and Administrative Reform

Vice Presidents:       - President of the National Institute of Statistics

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Housing

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Economy and Finance

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Labor, Family and Equal Opportunities

Secretary                 - Vice-President of the National Institute of Statistics

Members:                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Education, Research and Youth

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Defense

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Public Health

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Justice

                                - State Secretary for the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs

                                - State Secretary for the Government General Secretariat

                                - State Secretary for the Interethnic Relations Department

                                 - representative of the Romanian Academy President 

                                - representative of the local public authorities’ associative structures 

 Pursuant to Article 5 of Law No 5/2008, the organization and carrying out of the Census were performed in technical and methodological terms by the National Institute of Statistics, under the coordination and control of the Population and Housing Census’s Central Commission, according to the Recommendations of the European Union, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe rules in the field of Population and Housing Census.

National Institute of Statistics was responsible for the publication of final Population and Dwelling Census results.

The whole census data processing was carried-out by National Institute of Statistics. There are no other census data producing agencies.

Confidentiality was a big issue for the 2011 Population and Dwelling Census. The issue was present during several main activities of the census and regarded all categories of census staff.

The main activities where the issue of confidentiality was involved were:

• Census preparation

In the step of preparing the Census legislation, special articles regarding the collection and processing of Individual Number Code in Census, ethnic group, religion and mother tongue were included, in respect of Law no. 677/2001 regarding people’s protection regarding processing the data with personal character and free movement of these kind of data (article 12 from OUG no. 36/2007 modified and updated).

Special specifications regarding the obligation to respect the data confidentiality were included in Staff’s handbook and in supported material for staff’s training. Trainers were obliged to describe in a special section of the staff, training the aspects regarding the confidentiality issues.

Each person from the census staff signed, in the same time with the work contract’s signature, a special confidentiality agreement about conformation of confidentiality rules in any phase of the census: data collection, data processing or data dissemination.

• Data collection

During the data collection period, some measures for protection of data fulfilled in questionnaires were applied. For example, the enumerators had the obligation to deliver the fulfilled questionnaires daily to his/her supervisor.

It was forbidden to enumerators to speak about information about persons known in the context of census data collection with other persons besides supervisors.

On each type of questionnaire, the following was printed:

DATA CONFIDENTIALITY

All information on this form is confidential and shall be used exclusively for statistical purposes.

• Data entry and data processing

The same restrictions regarding disclosure of individual information applied in the data entry and data processing phase.

A special chapter is related to the protection of data from the informatics point of view. The identification variables were kept separately, in a file with strictly restricted access.

The data entry was made by the Counties’ Technical Secretariates, using an software system specifically designed for this. The system includes a client, desktop application and a server application.

The desktop application has been developed using .NET 4.0 technologies (Windows Presentation Foundation) and contained the specific user interfaces for the users to input the data collected on paper questionnaire, validate it against the predefined correlation rules and  made the data correction (exclusive record and item imputation).

One particular feature of the desktop application was the ability to work offline (meaning, without connection to the server application). In this case, users can input and validate data locally, and when the connection with the server is restored to actually save them into the central database.

The server application was also developed using .NET 4.0 technologies (WebServices REST), and the main functions were: saving the data to the central DB, batch validation of the data (sets of questionnaire, re-validated), synchronise central DB with off-line work of different users. The central DB is an Oracle 11g Database Server.

• Data dissemination

Rules against data disclosure were applied in the dissemination phase. Generally, the printed tables used a convenient level of data disaggregation which did not allow statistical disclosure. Details are included in point 7.1 and 7.2.

Confidentiality policy related to census data was the same as the confidentiality policy applied for any other statistical research by National Institute of Statistics.

We used cell suppression as main method of protection against data disclosure.

The method was applied only for persons as statistical units, for all individual variables. Cells with less than 3 observations were protected at all level of disaggregation.

Another way of protection against individual data disclosure was degree of disaggregation. For example, in tables presenting ethnic groups, religions or mother tongue, the categories with relatively small number of observations (less than 20000 persons) were grouped in the “Other ethnic/ religion/ mother tongues” category.

The release calendar planned three moments for data release: first moment relatively immediately the close of data collection period (beginning of 2012), the second after 4 months and the third moment, after individual data editing, processing, validation and tabulation.

The general program of the 2011 Population and Dwelling Census, approved by the Central Commission of  2011 Population and Dwelling Census was available on the census dedicated website: www.recensamantromania.ro.

The user access policy for census data is the same policy for user access applied by INS for any other datasets, according with the requirements of Law no.226/2009.

Information about methodology, national and international census legislation, all sets of questionnaires and other materials used are available on census dedicated website www.recensamantromania.ro.  A set of ready tabulated results (the most requested ones, inclusive data at localities’ level) are available free of charge on this website.

Census results are public. Access to Census data is possible free of charge for already tabulated results and by cost for special data processing. The payment includes only the operation of data processing (the cost for carry-out of special software for data extraction from the census microdata database in the user’s requested format).

Micro-data access is available for scientific purposes, on the basis of a special Contract for micro-data use.

Data are disseminated free of charge for any media request.

Following the initial dissemination policy, there were three phase of data dissemination:

-       on 2-th of February 2012 as provisional results

-       on 24-th of August as preliminary results

-       on 4-th of July as final results.

There were 3 Press releases for the dissemination of results:

-       on 2-th February 2012 for the provisional results;

-       on 24-th August 2012 for the preliminary results;

-       on 4-th July for the final results.

Each Press release was accompanied by a set of results tabulation, presenting the main results from each step, available on the census dedicated website www.recensamantromania.ro.

A Press Conference was organized on 4-th July for the presentation of first final results.

It was planned and carried-out 4 printed final results volumes, namely:

Volume I : Usual resident population –Demographic structure – 62 tables included

Volume II : Usual resident population – Ethnic and confessional structure - 34 tables included

Volume III : Usual resident population – Socio-economic structure - 58 tables included

Volume IV : Buildings, dwellings, households - 53 tables included

A fifth printed volume was elaborated, an English version of the final 2011 Population and housing census results , named General results population, households, dwellings (45 tables included).

On the National Institute of Statistics website – www.insse.ro – a dedicated web application for Census historical data will be available. The users have access at a 10 percent data sample from all census data in order to have information about the coverage and the statistics available from the last two population and dwelling censuses (2002 and 2011).

Micro-data access is allowed by request, for scientific scope, based on a legal Contract for micro-data use.

The contract should identify the Contract parts, legal framework, Contract subject, and beneficiary obligations, conditions in which the cancelation of the contract is possible and the ways the litigation are solved.

Any user can ask for a particular Census statistics, special breakdowns, special administrative units etc. These data need by requests are solved as any other data requests inside National Institute of Statistics, respecting the general dissemination policy of Institute.

Documentation on methodology is available on several places:

v      on 2011 Population and Dwelling Census website, www.recensamantromania.ro, all the census information are presented in the following main sections:

-       About Census – general information about Population and Dwelling Censuses;

-       Legal base – all national legislation and European Regulations related to 2011 Census and other international recommendations;

-       Statistical instruments -Census’s questionnaires, handbook, nomenclatures and classifications, special recommendations used during data collection etc., 

-       Romanians present in foreign countries – special section presenting the methodological aspect related to census registration of Romanians being abroad at the census reference date;

-       Results – all the Press releases, together with main results tables in each of the three phase of results’ dissemination: provisional data, preliminary data and final data (first step, on 4-th July 2013);

-       Contact

v      in each printed thematic Census results volumes a detailed methodological chapter is included, containing definitions and other methodological aspects regarding the majority of collected variables and information about Census organization and implementation. The methodological chapters contained details regarding method applied for indirect data collection from administrative sources also.

v      Census hypercube web application contained metadata information about 2011 Census;

v      2011 Population and Dwelling Census’s Quality Report included several information about census methodology and implementation.

A Quality Report of the 2011 Population and Dwelling Census is available at INS level in Romanian language.

Quality assurance was obtained by the following methods:

-       data validation during and after data entry;

-       data reconciliation with administrative data sources. 

For each kind of questionnaire, a special list of logical conditions were prepared and included in the data entry and data checking software. There are around 1000 logical conditions which checked:

-         presence or absence of obligatory variables’ answers;

-         logical correlation between several variables;

-         outliers and special cases;

-         normal limits for numerical variables;

-         logical correlation between variables in different questionnaires (for example between information regarding de facto or de jure marital status and the existence of the husband/ partner in the same household) and so on.

A set of checking was done in the same time with data editing. The second set of checking was done after data editing, in the phase of data validation. These activities were done at each county’s level.

When data editing and data validation were finished, a second package of operations were done at INS level, namely:

-         invalid personal numerical codes (CNP);

-         looking and cleaning for double records (two records for the same person) in the same file (P, TP or PPI file);

-         missing records;

Based on lists with errors, these errors were solved at county’s level.

In the Romanian national statistical system measures for usual resident population, obtained exactly as the international methodology asked for, did not exist previous the 2011 population and dwelling census. Therefore, coverage assessment was done by comparing with other sources and was based on other indicators, not based on usual resident population.

The current measures of population in Romania were over-evaluated, because no data sources on emigration according to usual residence criterion was available. In this way, the usual resident population was over-evaluated due to under-evaluation of international migration (i.e. the totality of persons leaving Romania for more than 12 months, establishing the usual residence abroad, but maintaining the domicile in Romania).

After data entry and data validation, a total of 18,938,636 individual records were present in the census micro-data database. Comparing with current population measure, the under-coverage detected in the step of provisional results was proved. The research of a method for census data’s completeness was needed. This method was to look for missing records in administrative data sources, using time, usual residence and twelve months criteria.

Under-coverage

The existence of under-coverage was detected by several means:

-       post-enumeration survey

-       ad-hoc registration of addresses where the enumerators found non-response

-       mass media messages during data collection period

-       comparison with Romanian population register and administrative sources

Over-coverage

The existence of over-coverage was measured after the data entry:

-         for persons using the Personal Numeric Code (CNP) by finding more than one unique CNP in the P, TP and PPI files;

-         for dwellings, using the addresses;

-         for buildings, using the unique building code;

The over-coverage was solved deleting the second, third etc. record from the census microdata database for each identification variable present more than one time in the census microdata database.

Post enumeration survey was carry-out in the period 3-14 November 2011, one week after the ending of data collection period. It was designed and implemented as an independent sample survey using a country’s level representative dwelling sample.

The main objective of the post-census control survey is to measure both the quality of the answers given on individuals and households, and the amount of information collected, in order to increase user confidence in the results of the census.

The control survey sought to estimate the errors that have occurred in the census data regarding:

-        the completeness – checking all households / housing units throughout the country were enumerated;

-        coverage - checking whether the population of the entire country was enumerated;

-        quality of responses recorded at the Population and Housing Census – by recording into the survey forms the responses corresponding to a limited set of characteristics of those covered by the population and housing census program.

By comparing the responses recorded in the survey with the Census results, we were able to determine the omissions and the extra entries, the frequency and the size of random or systematic observation errors, their accumulation trend in terms of certain characteristics, and the relationship of dependence between the correctness of responses and the responses source: the person concerned, another person from the household or a person outside the household.

All dwellings and individuals in residential and non-residential buildings, as well as housing units in collective living spaces (student hostels and workers' dormitories for unmarried, nursing homes, child care institutions, hotels, etc.) which also had to be recorded at the Population and Housing Census have fallen within the scope of the survey.

The following were not included: dormitories, hotel or camp-type collective living spaces and people in them, recorded on separate Census forms.

The sample was established in view of the two basic principles of selection: maximizing representativeness and minimizing costs.

Noting that, as early as the Census preparation phase, a selection base was created by dividing the entire territory of the country into Census sectors of approximately equal size, the control survey sample was established from that base, by means of a two-stage probabilistic selection: sectors were chosen in the first stage of the survey and the dwellings were chosen in the second stage. Each chosen sector was assigned to a controller.

According to the scope of the survey, the sampling base did not cover the Census sectors established in shared housing units.

Considering that surveying a number of about 32 housing in each census sector (one third of the total housing sector) allows an accurate assessment of the enumerator’s activity and provided that the sample size ensures a maximum error selection of 0.3% - for errors whose frequency is lower than 2% - guaranteed with a probability of 0.95, it resulted that, in the first stage, the sample should contain 504 Census sectors (about 5% of the total number of sectors), hereinafter referred to as survey sectors.

The control survey sample selection was done in two stages:

-        centrally, at the National Institute of Statistics, by choosingthe survey sectors from the list of Census sectors, by means of unrepeated random selection; all residential buildings and dwellings related were visited in the selected sectors, a minimum number of indicators being recorded to assess the Census completeness and coverage degree;

-        in each county, by selecting a third of the dwellings included in the survey, for which essential features relating to all households and individuals that make them up were recorded in order to verify the quality of Census data.

To ensure high quality of results, the control survey form included a small number of features, both for individuals and for housing units, studying only the characteristics defining the main census results, namely:

a. for households in the housing units

          -    number of persons present

          -    number of persons temporarily absent

          -    number of persons away for a long period of time

           -   number of persons temporarily present

b.  for housing units

- Type of dwelling
- Ownership
- Kitchen / kitchenette inside the housing unit
- Bathroom (bath / shower) in the dwelling
- Water closet (WC) in the dwelling
- Running water in the dwelling
- Heating (including own central heating)

c.  for persons present and temporarily absent from the household

-    gender

-    date of birth

-         legal marital status

-         situation of the person on the Census reference date

-         for how many months has the person been away from the enumeration locality?

-         place of birth (mother’s residence at the moment of the enumerated person’s birth)

-         has the person ever had a different residence than the enumeration residence?

-         previous residence

-    date on which the person settled in the enumeration locality

-         citizenship

-         what ethnic group does the person consider he/she belongs to?

-         what is the person’s mother tongue?     

-         highest educational institution from which the person graduated (receiving a certificate or a diploma)  - name and profile  (the master’s and PhD studies were not included) 

-         current activity status (performed during the reference week 13 to 19 October 2011)

-         occupation in the main activity

-         workplace

-         main activity of the unit/subunit where the person was employed

Questions were formulated identically to those of the Census forms (including the serial number of the characteristic); the definition, the contents and the recording method remained also unchanged.

Recording the information was performed just as it was at the Census, i.e. by interviewing, based on the statements of persons inside the housing unit, as much as possible, as at the Census.

By comparing the Control Survey results with those obtained at the Census, was found that 128 people have been omitted in some households – representing 3.4 ‰ of the persons registered in the survey; however, 64 extra persons were incorrectly entered in other households, that is 1.7 ‰ of all persons in the sample, resulting in a net error of omission of 64 persons (1.7 ‰) and a coverage degree of 998.3 ‰. Housing units that have been omitted had a negative impact on the Census results, i.e. a negative error of 1.1 ‰ as against the control survey: 0.8 ‰ in urban areas, and 1.3 ‰ in rural areas.

The statistics produced from census data have great relevance for a large spectrum of users.

The main census data is the Government, for development of a large spectrum of policies which take into consideration the measure of population: economic policies, durable development, demographic and social policies and so on.

Economic enterprises should take into consideration for any national and local plan for business development the level and age structure of usual resident population, as well as territorial distribution of population.

For an adequate analyze of any social or economic phenomena, the researchers or students should base their studies on robust data regarding the main national resource of a country, population.

Immediately the final results were ready, a large range of users asked for census statistics. Example can be:

-         Ministry of Internal Affairs;

-         Ministry of Finance for determining the local administration budgets and localities’ categories;

-         Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration for several development projects at national and regional level;

-         National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communication of Romania;

-         Different professional associations;

-         Big utilities enterprises (main telephone companies, large hypermarket chains) ;

-         Insurance companies or pharmaceutical enterprises ;

-         Civil associations for human rights and so on.

Table Relevance of the main census statistics at national level

In the period of data processing, no special user satisfaction survey could be carried-out.

The number of data requests and users visits on the dedicated census website show a high interest for census data.

All the variables collected were used (directly or indirectly) to produce useful statistical information.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic. 

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

No reasons for any unreliability of the data on the topic.

The 2011 Population and Dwelling Census did not include sample surveys as data sources

The non-sampling errors were generated mainly by:

- enumerated persons

- possible missing or overlapping in territory mapping, solved before data collection period

- enumerators

- coding staff

- computer operators

- persons who establish the selection conditions for data tabulation and hypercubes’ design

The questionnaires were designed to be very easy to understand, with very simple questions. There was a relatively comparability between 2011 and 2002 versions of questionnaires (except the compulsory variables).

Special modules in Staff’s handbook were dedicated to the enumerator’s attitude towards population, describing how to behave correctly, how to ask questions, how to offer explanations and so on.

For foreign citizens with usual residence for at least 12 months in Romania or for those who came in Romania for visits in the data collection period (temporarily present persons) a translated version of the questionnaires was available.

Special training sessions were organized for enumerators. These sessions were organized in a manner in which a relatively small number of enumerators to be trained, evaluated and selected. The enumerators’ selection was done on the base of a practical test consisting in fulfillment a hypothetic example of census questionnaires for a dwelling and a household.

A very detailed handbook was carry-out, printed and disseminated to each census’s staff. Everyone had the obligation to learn, know and apply exactly the content of the handbook and other supplementary methodological and organizational issues of the census.

Using a special category of staff for coding the open questions was the method to diminish this kind of non-sampling errors. A relatively small number of persons coded the answers to open questions as: ethnic group, religion and mother tongue, occupation, industry etc.). The remaining ones were eliminating in the process of data validations, in the validation rules being included in detail many logical conditions between age- occupation – industry and so on. 

Another way of errors elimination was the comparison of final indicators with the provisional ones (it is the case of open answers for ethnic group, religion and mother tongue). Big discrepancies between the number of persons in each category of these variables were analyzed and eliminated the potential errors founded.

Errors made by computers operators were eliminated in the phase of data validation, through the validation rules defined and applied in the special software prepared and used.

27 months between data collection period and data disemmination through hypercubes.

The calendar date for transmission of the data for all hypercubes: 31 March 2014

The calendar date for any major revision of the data transmitted: no major data revision is foreseen.

The calendar date for transmission of the textual metadata: 31 March 2014

The calendar date of transmission of the metadata included in the ad-hoc questionnaire: 30 May 2014

From methodological point of view, all indicators are consistent and comparable across all geographical units: macro-regions, development regions, counties, localities.

The 2011 Population and Dwelling Census followed very closely the definition requested by Regulation no. 763/2008 and the United Nations and Eurostat Recommendations for the 2010 censuses of Population and Housing.

The 2011 Population and Dwelling Census measured only primary homelessness (roofless). Due to the complex system of questions needed to measure secondary homelessness, these questions were not included in the census questionnaires.

The homeless persons were enumerated in the places were the enumerators found them: on the street, on collective living quarters (hospitals, special City hall’s shelters, other living units) and a P-questionnaire was fulfilled.

Full comparability over time for geographical units at national, counties’ level and the majority of localities.

For a number of 110 administrative units (mainly from rural area) the comparability with the 2002 population and dwelling census data is not possible due to modification of the locality’s structure during the last intercensus period (some localities divided, some other merged).

The census statistics are reconcilable with those obtained through other data sources (especially with statistics produced by INS) or statistical domains due to the use of common classification, definitions, breakdowns and data collection method (face-to-face interview). Census collected basic individual information, which is collected also in other statistical surveys.

Due to the fact all indicators and data sets were obtained from the unique microdata database, all data sets are consistent.

The total cost of 2011 Population and Dwelling Census in Romania was 198,244 thousands lei (around 45,055 thousands Euros), resulting an average cost of 2.24 Euros/usual resident person.

The budget was approved by Romanian Government in December 2009, but it was available only in the beginning of 2011 year.

The overall budget was divided between Ministry of Internal Affairs (63%)- as the main organizer of the 2011 census and National Institute of Statistics (37%).

The main expenditures are described in the following table (thousand lei):

The 2011 Population and Dwelling census was planned to have three data dissemination moments and two data revisions.

The planned dissemination moments were:

-       dissemination of provisional results – end of January 2012

-       dissemination of preliminary results – May 2012

-       dissemination of final results             -     as Press release – October 2013

                                                                      -       as final results printed books – last quarter of 2013

                                                                       -       as hypercube web application – 31 March 2014

For the dissemination of provisional and preliminary results, summarization questionnaires at the level of census sector were designed to be fulfilled by each enumerator in order to produce main population and dwellings provisional indicators.

For the final results, information fulfilled in the individual questionnaires should be processed in order to produce all final census indicators.

We planned to have two data revisions: preliminary data instead of provisional ones and final results instead of preliminary results.

The 2011 Population and Dwelling census had three data dissemination moments and two data revisions.

The actual dissemination moments were:

-       dissemination of provisional results – 2-th February 2012

-       dissemination of preliminary results – 24-th August 2012

-       dissemination of final results             -     as Press release – 4-th July 2013

                                                                      -       as final results printed books – last quarter of 2013

                                                                      -       as hypercube web application – 31 March 2014

For the dissemination of provisional and preliminary results, data fulfilled in summarization questionnaires – by aggregating some information fulfilled in individual questionnaires - for each census sector by all 103429 enumerators were used.

For the final results, information fulfilled in the individual questionnaires edited, processed and validated was used in order to produce all final census indicators.

We had two data revisions: preliminary data instead of provisional ones and final results instead of preliminary results.

In the data collection period, all people it should have to be interviewed by an enumerator. Depending on each individual situation, people should be classified in a unique category and his/her personal information should be fulfilled on a specific type of questionnaire. The four categories are:

-         present person (P) or

-         temporarily absent person (TA) or

-         temporarily present person (TP) or

-         person left for a long period of time (PPI)

Present person was considered the person (irrespective of citizenship and country of birth) who have lived in their place of usual residence in a specific geographical area inside Romania for a continuous period of at least 12 months before the census reference date or he/she arrived in their place of usual residence in a specific geographical area inside Romania during the 12 months before the census reference date with the intention to stay there for at least one year.

To be considered as present the person should be present in the census reference date (or he/she was at the job, school, hospital and so on, but he/she would come home at the end of the day/week).

A P questionnaire was fulfilled for each homeless people enumerated. They were considered present in their original household or in a collective unit quarters  were the enumerator found them.

Temporarily absent person was considered the person (irrespective of citizenship and country of birth) who have lived in their place of usual residence in a specific geographical area inside Romania for a continuous period of at least 12 months before the census reference date or he/she arrived in their place of usual residence in a specific geographical area inside Romania during the 12 months before the census reference date with the intention to stay there for at least one year.

The persons included in this category were not present at the census reference date at his/her usual resident address, but their absence was less than 12 months or with the intention to be absent for less than 12 months. The absence could have several reasons and the person could be inside or outside Romanian territory: for work, job related reasons, holiday, medical treatment or health care, for study (primary, secondary study, except students/university studies).

Temporarily present person was considered the person (irrespective of citizenship and country of birth) which, at the census reference date, he/she had came in the enumerating place for a period of time smaller than 12 months or having the intention to stay for less than 12 months in a private household or in a collective unit (hotel, hospital, hostel and so on) for different reasons: holiday, job related reasons, visiting the relatives or friends, health care or medical treatment. 

Person left for a long period of time was considered the person (irrespective of citizenship and country of birth) – which, at the census reference date, was left from the locality were he/she had the usual recidence in another locality inside or outside Romania, for a period of at least 12 months or he/she left the locality for less then 12 months, but he/she had the intention to be absent for at least 12 months.

The students studying in another locality were recorded as persons left for a long period of in the parents’ household and as present persons in the collective living quarter (or in a renting dwelling)in the locality where they were studying at the census reference date.

Individual information for present and temporarily absent persons were fulfilled in P type questionnaire.

Individual information for temporarily present persons were fulfilled in TP type questionnaire.

Individual information for person left for a long period of time were fulfilled in PPI type questionnaire.

In the usual resident population were included only present and temporarily absent persons.

Our data source, the “census microdata database” was organized on components, each component having the structure of a specific Census questionnaire. The link between the components is a unique code, relate to the census sector and records hierarchy inside the census sector.

So, the components of our “census microdata database” are:

(1) P file, containing individual records for all persons having usual residence in Romania for at least 12 months at the Census reference date;

(2) TP file, containing records for all temporarily present persons;

(3) PPI file, containing records for all persons left for a long period of time;

(4) M file, containing data for all persons 15 years old who were not present in the Census reference date in Romania, being abroad for less then 12 months or more than 12 months. Information from this file is related with information from P file or PPI file;

(5) LC file, containing records for all dwellings (conventional and non-conventional) and information about the building in which the dwelling is situated;

(6) G file, containing records for all private households;

(7) SC file, containing records for all collective living quarters and institutional households.

Data on persons were obtained from the census microdata database, P-file. This file included all individual records (directly collected during data collection period or totally imputed from administrative data sources)  for present persons and temporarily absent persons (less than 12 months), practically the usual resident population.

Data on households were obtained from the census microdata database, G-file. This file included all individual records (directly collected during data collection period or totally imputed from administrative data sources) for households having at least one member present or temporarily absent person (less than 12 months).

Data on family nuclei were derived from information included in the census microdata database, G-file (members’ relationship matrix).

Data on conventional dwellings were obtained from the census microdata database, LC-file. This file included all individual records (directly collected during data collection period or totally imputed from administrative data sources) for conventional dwellings were at least one person had the usual residence at census reference date.

Data on conventional dwellings were obtained from the census microdata database, SC-file. This file included all individual records (directly collected during data collection period) for collective living quarters.

Census data are collected once at 10 years. Last three population and dwelling census were carried-out in Romania in 1992, 2002 and 2011.

We used the following census questionnaires:

A. QUESTIONNAIRES FOR REGISTRATION

1.   LC – Dwelling, Building

2.   G – Household

3.   P – Person ( individual form)

4.  PPI – Person away for a long period of time

5.  TP – Person temporaly present

6.  M – Person  15 years and over living abroad

7.  SC – Colective living space

B. SUMARIZATION QUESTIONNAIRES

1.   CL – Sumarization table for census sector’s buildings and dwellings

2.   CP – Sumarization table for persons  from census sector

3.   CELR  –  Sumarization table – for population according to ethnicity, native language and religion from the census sector

4.   CM – Sumarization table for persons gone abroad

C. AUXILIARY QUESTIONNAIRES

            1.   PR – Fact sheet of census staff

            2.   BM – File set bordereau which comprises the composition of census sector and file set contents

Design and testing of questionnaires (including copies of all final questionnaires)

 The design of 2011 census questionnaires took into consideration the following main aspects:

1. the necessity to collect all topics included in the Annex of Regulation no.763/2008 to be collect in the Population and Dwelling Censuses;
2. the need to cover without overlap all population, i.e. the four population categories;
3. obligation to collect all core characteristics/ variables described in Appendix 1: List of proposed core and non-core topics for the 2010 round of population and housing censuses form the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and Eurostat Recommendations for the 2010 censuses of population and housing;
4. the need to ensure international comparability by using international classifications of occupation, industry, country of citizenship/birth, international standard classification of education and so on;
5. possibility to collect some of non-core topics described in Appendix 1 of the above document;
6. the need to ensure the time series comparability between population censuses;
7. the necessity to provide preliminary results as soon as possible after data collection;
8. possibility to measure the international emigration of Romania;
9. the need to capture the specificity and special characteristics of Romanian population;
10. national data requests from:

- National Bank of Romania – request to include in the census questionnaires a special modules addressed to persons 15 years or more who leave abroad for more or less than 12 months; the module was focused on the remittances from abroad and social and demographic characteristics of people working abroad.
- League for Rights’ Promotion and Defense of Persons with disabilities in Romania– request for collecting data on disability accordingly to International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health. The census questionnaire included a minimum set of 6 questions elaborated by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics.
- Non-governmental organizations for promoting the Roma rights had a great implication in Census preparations, in order to obtain a good participation of this ethnic group in Census activities
- Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism – request for data describing the number and characteristics of thermal rehabilitated dwellings.
k. other specific issues related to a survey addressed to population: convenient length of the interview, easy to understand questions, not sensitive questions and others.

 Preparation of any address lists, preparation of the field work, mapping, publicity

 The National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration was in charge of preparation of address lists and separation of census sectors. For this issue, all Romania’s territory was divided in 103,429 census sectors, for each of them existing a list of all addresses which should be visited in order to identify all dwellings (conventional or other type) and buildings in which at least one person has his/her usual residence.

The address lists and the content of each census sector were obtained automatically, based on the information available at each locality’s City hall’s level.

Due to some lack in the available information, the address lists offered were updated by the counties’ technical secretariats staff by visiting the assigned census sectors before the start of data collection period.

Finally, each enumerator had a list of addresses which he/she should visit in order to collect data.

 Data collection – 20-31 October 2011

Preliminary visit: On 19-th October 2011 each enumerator had to visit all territory of his/her census sector in order to:

-         know the addresses which should be visited;

-         identify all buildings and finding if they have living destination or they are firms, enterprises, schools and so on;

-         identifying all dwellings in which is possible to live somebody, especially those who hadn’t living destination;

-         identifying all buildings, including abandoned, un-occupied buildings and un finished buildings;

-         distribute the publicity materials and people announcement about census’s launching;

-         make a planning of the visits during the data collection period in order to have enough time to carry-out all the visits;

-         finding building or dwellings at the sector’s limit which can be double included in two separate sectors or building or dwellings not included at all anywhere.

Visits during the data collection period: in the period 20-31 October 2011 each enumerator had to visit all addresses from his/her census sector in order to make individual interviews with all persons and to record in Census specific questionnaire the characteristics of dwellings and buildings.

The enumerators should visit an address as many times as it was necessary to found the household / persons living there. Proxy interviews were allowed in case of a person who was difficult to be found.

The rhythm of interviews was monitored using daily sms. Each enumerator should report each morning of the data collection days the number of persons and dwellings enumerated and recorded in the previous day. The monitoring was done at counties and national level.

During the last days of the second data collection week, analyzing the rhythm of registration, some supplementary measures were adopted, namely:

-         each City hall organized a special place were persons not visited yet by an enumerator could come in order to be interviewed;

-         City halls in big cities defined a special e-mail address for receiving Census self-fulfilled questionnaires from persons not enumerated yet;

-         each City hall sent more supplementary enumerators in some census sectors were monitoring exercise showed low enumeration figures; in some cases, the enumerator visited some addresses together with his/her supervisor in order to convince population to accept census interviews;

During all data collection period, two population information channels functioned, namely:

-         at each City hall population can found the name of the enumerator responsible for a specific census sector, in order to verify the fake enumerators;

-         at INS level a CallCenter functioned, in order to offer any kind of information related to Population and Dwelling census, 24 hours from 24, all data collection days.

Enumerators’ activities after data collection period

Immediately after data collection period, each enumerator should carry-out three important activities.

First of them consisted in verifying the order of questionnaires, completeness and correctness of information included in questionnaires.

The second duty consisted in activity to fulfill 5 summarization questionnaires for his/her census sector, using data recorded in each individual questionnaire and two auxiliary questionnaires. Processing these summarization questionnaires it was possible to publish first preliminary results, in 2-th February 2012, three months after end of data collection.

The last main activity was to deliver all census materials (fulfilled and un-used questionnaires, manual, and list of addresses, summarization questionnaires and so on) to the County’s Technical Secretariat of Population and Dwelling Census.

Census advertising was done through the following activities:

- posters presenting the scope, objectives and data collection period of Population and Dwelling Census elaborated in main mother tongue present in Romania; the posters were posted at City Halls and in public places with great visibility;

- letters for households with main information related to census;

- INS’s staff participation in several TV and radio broadcasts presenting the main features and useful information about organization and coverage of 2011 Population and Dwelling Census;

- audio and video advertisement presented on local and national TV and radio channels;

- advertising made in public transportation (buses and metro) and so on.

Data validation contained several phases:

-         quantitative and qualitative checks made by enumerators and supervisors on fulfilled questionnaires;

-         data controls made during and after data entry ;

-         data reconciliation with administrative data sources;

-         data errors eliminations during data tabulation validation;

-         data errors eliminations during hypercubes validation (inclusive checking of data inconsistencies between hypercubes and tabulated data).

For each kind of questionnaire, a special list of logical conditions were prepared and included in the data entry and data checking software. There are around 1000 logical conditions which checked:

-         presence or absence of obligatory variables’ answers;

-         logical correlation between several variables;

-         outliers and special cases;

-         normal limits for numerical variables;

-         logical correlation between variables in different questionnaires (for example between information regarding de facto or de jure marital status and the existence of the husband/ partner in the same household) and so on.

A set of checking was done in the same time with data editing. The second set of checking was done after data editing, in the phase of data validation. These activities were done at each county’s level.

When data editing and data validation were finished, a second package of operations were done at INS level, namely:

-         invalid personal numerical codes (CNP);

-         looking and cleaning for double records (two records for the same person) in the same file (P, TP or PPI file);

-         missing records;

Based on lists with errors, these errors were solved at county’s level.

After all sets of questionnaires were delivered to the County’s Technical Secretariat of Population and Dwelling Census, the data entry activity begun.

Before data entry starting, special category of census staff - the persons in charged with coding – performed the activity of codification (manual) for all variables to open questions using predefined classification and nomenclatures: citizenship, ethnic group, mother tongue, religion, localities (usual residence, place of birth, domicile, previous residence, place of work), country of previous residence, school of highest level graduated, school attained, occupation and industry.

Data entry was done using operators.

For the linkage between different questionnaires in a specific category the identification code was used. For example, for linkage between individual questionnaires of household’s members and household and dwelling questionnaires, the components of this identification code had the following meaning:

-         Folder number (census sector code)

-         Order number of the building within the folder

-         Order number of the dwelling within the building

-         Number of the LC form within the folder

-         Number of the SC form under which the dwelling was recorded

-         Number of G form of the dwelling

-         Person’s order number

For identification of missing individual records in census microdata database and administrative sources used in the indirect data collection the personal numerical code (CNP) and persons’ addresses were used.

For each kind of questionnaire, a special list of logical conditions were prepared and included in the data entry and data checking software. There are around 1000 logical conditions which checked:

-         presence or absence of obligatory variables’ answers;

-         logical correlation between several variables;

-         outliers and special cases;

-         normal limits for numerical variables;

-         logical correlation between variables in different questionnaires (for example between information regarding de facto or de jure marital status and the existence of the husband/ partner in the same household) and so on.

A set of checking was done in the same time with data editing. The second set of checking was done after data editing, in the phase of data validation. These activities were done at each county’s level.

When data editing and data validation were finished, a second package of operations were done at INS level, namely:

-         invalid personal numeric codes (CNP);

-         looking and cleaning for double records (two records for the same person) in the same file (P, TP or PPI file);

-         missing records;

Based on lists with errors, these errors were solved at county’s level too.

After processing the individual forms, the under-registration found in 2011 Census’s provisional results processing stage was confirmed. Therefore, methods have been applied to ensure the census data completeness, using both the method of indirect collection from administrative sources and statistical techniques for imputation of data. There were 1,183 thousand persons not enumerated in the Population and Dwelling Census of October 2011 (hereinafter, PHC 2011) and identified at the administrative data sources level. The administrative data sources found to have useful information for finalizing the results of 2011 Census are contained in:

• The National Register of Personal Data - RNEP – managed by the Directorate for Persons Record and Databases Management;
• Statement on obligations to pay social security contributions and income tax, and the nominal records on insured persons - D112 – managed by the National Agency for Fiscal Administration;
• Record of Employees - IM – managed by the Labor Inspectorate;
• CNPP database –  managed by the National House of Public Pensions (CNPP);
• CNAS database –  National Health Insurance House of Romania (CNAS);
• Tax Registration Statement / Statement for individuals who carry out economic activities independently or liberal professions –  D070 - managed by the National Agency for Fiscal Administration
• Record of beneficiaries of state child allowance, family allowance and help the guaranteed minimum aid – managed by the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection (ANPSI)
• Database of students enrolled in the 2011-2012 school year – managed by the Ministry of Education.

The starting point of the indirect collection from administrative sources procedure was the comparison of records in the 2011 Census database (data recorded on the individual forms completed by the enumerators during the field collection stage) with the existing entries from the Population Register database. The set of records found in the Population Register and missing from the PHC 2011 database (recorded on all P, PPI or TP forms[1]) were searched in other administrative sources for the month of October 2011 and the preceding and subsequent months of the same year, in accordance with the concept of residence in Romania for at least 12 months; this concept was applied during the 2011 PHC to measure the usual resident population. Just for persons identified in the administrative sources used, for which there is clear evidence that they were in Romania during the Census and most of 2011, a record was added (imputed) in the PHC 2011 database for which identifiers and values ​​ were subsequently filled for the Census variables. Thus, all recordings obtained from indirect collection have the same structure with the rest of records obtained from interviewing people during the field data collection period and refer to the same reference point, enabling the aggregation of information for the country’s entire usual resident population, whether or not interviewed by enumerators.

The minors pertaining to the identified adults (mother and father) for whom information were taken from the administrative sources above, as well as for adults (mother and father) who were counted during the PHC 2011, were searched and identified in the National Register of Personal Data.

Based on the information related to the address of the enumerated persons, data on dwellings were also completed and the households within those housing were reconstituted.

 The principle of item imputation was to use the best source for imputation and best criteria to find a good proxy for the real information. Therefore, item imputation can be classified in two main categories:

1. Some variables were imputed from the administrative data sources where we found it; we consider this an indirect collection of data, not an imputation, because these data are information declared by individuals, so they represent valid values, not artificial ones (as it is the case of item imputation).
2. The second category refers to statistical imputations. Depending on type of variables, we applied the following kind of item imputation:

• for variables referring to individuals, we used the hot deck donor method;
• for the qualitative variables related to dwellings, we used the method of most frequent value from the cell a specific dwelling is part of ;
• for the qualitative variables related to dwellings, we used the method of cell’s average for that cell a specific dwelling is part of ;

The administrative data sources were used in cascade, one after one. The information found in administrative data sources were use for item imputation of census’s variables on total imputed records.

If the information was available for missing persons, the following variables were collected from administrative data sources by indirect data collection for imputed records: CNP (sex and date of birth derived from CNP), legal marital status, domicile, previous residence, citizenship, highest level of school graduated, educational institution the person is attending, current activity status, work time, occupation, employment status, industry and type of sector in which the person is working.

The automatic corrections applied solved the data inconsistencies, like for example:

-         age - highest level of school graduated – current activity status;

-         occupation – industry - type of sector in which the person is working;

-         age - educational institution the person is attending - highest level of school graduated;

-         age – sex - legal marital status ;

-         age – number of life-born children;

Due to special character of some variables and due to non-existence of this information in the administrative data sources, we leave the answer “Not available” for the following variables:

- year of marriage; year of entering the consensual union; number of live-born children (only for women); ethnic group; mother tongue; religion; difficulties in performing the current activity (in P questionnaire)

- dwelling type of ownership; number of rooms used for professional purposes; dwelling’s endowment with air conditioning installation; year of building’s construction; construction material for external walls of the building (in LC questionnaire)

We delete the records considered to be duplicates of the same person/ household or dwelling.

Duplicate CNP were classified in:

1. pair records with the same CNP enumerated inside a specific county and
2. pair records with the same CNP enumerated in two different counties

1. the County’s staff had to identify the paper questionnaires for the two pair records and compare the content on paper with the information included in database.

-         If, from name and first name, date of birth and other information comparison they could conclude the two questionnaires referred to the same person, one questionnaire was deleted from the database;

-         Contrary, it was clear one questionnaire contained a valid and correct CNP and the second one contained a wrong one. In this case, the staff found the correct CNP for the second questionnaire, corroborating the information existing on the fulfilled second questionnaire;

-         If the correction of the CNP was not possible, it was made zero and the record remained in the database.

b. pair questionnaires with the same CNP enumerated in two different counties were firstly checked from the answers’ completeness point of view on the majority of variables. Elimination of one double record was done based on following criteria:

-         From 2 individual records 18 years old and over with current activity status as student, the record enumerated in an university town was kept;

-         From 2 individual records having fulfilled the locality in which the workplace is situated, one of them having workplace in the enumeration locality and the other in different locality, the record in which the work place was located in enumeration locality was kept;

-         From 2 individual records, one being allocated to an LC- Dwelling, building questionnaire and the other one being allocated to a SC questionnaire (collective living unit), the record from SC questionnaire was kept;

-         From 2 individual records, one being fulfilled for a present person in the enumeration locality and the other one being fulfilled for a temporarily absent person, the record for the present person was kept.

Once all members of a household were deleted, the record corresponding to these deleted records was deleted too.

Starting with the imputed individual records, households were determined based on address (all persons living in the same dwelling) and family relationships.

In some cases, information about family composition was found in Social protection administrative data (child allocation) and in Population register.

Two different cases were taken into consideration:

1. for the imputed individual records associated with a dwelling already recorded in the census micro-data database – in this case the imputed record was included in the household already recorded and the family relationships were made over;
2. for the imputed individual records associated with a dwelling (address) missing in the census micro-data database

The remaining imputed records, where no family association was found, were considered households with unrelated members and un-known type of household.

Besides partial and total imputations, no other adjustments were done on data.