A NEW METHODOLOGY FOR PROCESSING AUSTRALIA 1991 POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS

Processing of Australia's 1998 Population and Housing Census was based on the use of optical mark recognition (OMR) for the capture of self- coded responses, and computer assisted coding (CAC) for the coding and capture of the remaining write-in responses, and for editing and amen ding the data. This combination was considered to be the most cost eff ective input processing methodology for the 1991 Census and reduced si gnificantly the number of temporary staff required compared with that needed for processing previous censuses. Both OMR and CAC improved the quality of 1998 Census data by reducing processing errors. The strate gy also provided for early capture of some of the census data during t he OMR phase for use in timely revision to the population estimates an d the early release of preliminary census results. This paper describe s the methodology used in processing Australia's 1991 Census and discu sses new methodologies for processing future Australian censuses.