Ethnic, Religious and Language Groups: Towards a Set of Rules for Data Collection and Statistical Analysis

The establishment of reliable and authoritative figures on ethnic, religious, and language groups plays a prominent role in efforts to fight discrimination and foster individual human rights as well as minority group rights. However, there is no consensus among statisticians, demographers and social scientists at large concerning standards to be used in the identification of minority groups and in the processing and analysing generated data. This article identifies different data sources and measurement problems of ethnic, religious and language groups, building on the rich international experience to date. The conclusion presents a set of rules and guidelines for the improvement of data collection, especially in the context population censuses and sample surveys, as well as for data analysis. Traditionally, population censuses are by far the most extensive and regular data source relating to the size, growth and structure of religious, language and ethnic groups. At the end of the 19th century, many European countries started to include questions on language, religion, ethnic and/or national groups in their censuses. The most recent United Nations/Eurostat recommendations [1] include essentially these same variables among the census topics. In the 1990 round of censuses, a significant majority of European countries collected data on one or another cultural characteristics, with language data having a clear lead. [2] The picture from censuses is far more complete than that from vital statistics and especially migration statistics. The number of European countries producing a full range of demographic data – census, vital statistics and migration – by ethnic or national group is very limited (Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia). Finland, with its integrated register based system, is the only country with a complete set of demographic data (fertility, mortality, migration) according to language groups. [3] Although censuses are the most important data source, limitations in the scope and usage of census data are considerable. The main limitations are political in nature and they are due to the close relationship between a country's policy on ethnic, religious and language minorities and the availability of official statistical data, especially census data. Where minorities have no official recognition, national statistical institutes usually follow exactly the same policy. In France, for instance, the INSEE does not collect any data on language, religious or ethnic groups, on the principle of the secular and unitary nature of the French Republic. [4] A recent sample survey by INED and INSEE on the spatial …