Govt to Count Nation
The trial population census will be launched in October in Russia, while the full-fledged census is slated for 2010. This year’s effort will extend to three regions of Russia. The figures of last 2002 census require updating, as the bureaucrats need new data to come up with adequate solutions.
Russia’s Statistics Service Rosstat announced yesterday the launch of the trial population census in October of 2008 to cover 300,000 living in Petrograd District of St. Petersburg, Central District in Khabarovsk and Balashikha District in the Moscow Region. It will be the final rehearsal before All-Russia’s population census slated for 2010; the federal budget has appropriated 17 billion ruble for its preparation and implementation.
In Rosstat, they emphasize the growing significance of statistics about the nation. “Nowadays, the issues related to social features of the population - not only the age, education but also medicine, and especially labor force - are becoming the most vital for statistics,” said Rosstat head Vladimir Sokolin.
Russia annually loses a million of working age, “there are more and more pensioners and less and less people that are servicing and feeding them.” The census won’t solve the problem of demography, growing differentiation of income, housing conditions, workforce shortage, but “it will provide vital information that will enable the government and research community to understand seriousness of the problem and seek the answer,” the official said.
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All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 18, 2008
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