Maintaining the quality of the registers used in the Danish census

1. Since 1981 the census in Denmark have been based solely on administrative registers. Information
is gathered from several different registers and linked together by the use of a number of identifiers.
This ensures a total count of every variable that is needed to establish the Danish census.

2. The experiences over the years in using administrative registers for statistical purposes have shown
that the continuous and heavily administrative use of registers is the most important process in keeping
the quality of the registers. In the administrative use of registers it is possible to detect and correct
errors. The more intense the use of the register is the more errors can be found and corrected.

3. In addition to what the administrative users do for the register quality the statistical users have to
act to keep track of the quality of the registers. In this connection exchange of information is a key
topic.

4. In the paper some experiences of quality assessment and maintenance of registers, in connection
with the Danish census will be described, on basis of a presentation of concrete examples.

This PDF was prepared by Marius Ejby Poulsen, Statistics Denmark