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Description: This document introduces and describes updates to the Labour Force Survey estimates in January 2023. These updates include the transition to National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2021 as well as enhancements to the LFS data processing system.

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This paper introduces and explains modifications made to the Labour Force Survey estimates.

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This publication presents quarterly estimates of population for Canada, provinces and territories as well as statistics on the following components of population change: births, deaths, immigration, emigration, returning emigration, net temporary emigration, net non-permanent residents and interprovincial migration, the latter by origin and destination. The Quarterly Demographic Estimates publication contains the most recent estimates as well as a quarterly historical series. It also contains highlights and analysis of the most current demographic trends, as well as a brief description of the concepts, methods and data quality of the estimates.

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These guidelines provide information to help people effectively use and interpret the data quality indicators for the 2021 Census.

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This fact sheet provides a concise description of the context to the understanding of confidence intervals. Confidence intervals are a useful data quality indicator. Confidence intervals will usually be available in data tables accessible through the Statistics Canada website.

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Canada’s diversity and rich cultural heritage have been shaped by the people who have come from all over the world to call it home. But even in our multicultural society, eliminating all forms of discrimination remains a challenge. In this episode, we turn a critical eye to the ways that cognitive bias risks perpetuating systemic racism. Statistics are supposed to accurately reflect the world around us, but are all data created equal? Join our guests, Sarah Messou-Ghelazzi, Communications Officer, Filsan Hujaleh, Analyst with the Centre for Social Data Insights and Innovation, and Jeff Latimer, Director General - Accountable for Health, Justice, Diversity and Populations at Statistics Canada as we explore the role data can play to make Canada a more equal society for all.

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This guide describes the content and applications of the product, as well as providing information on data quality, record layouts, and methodology.

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This guide describes the content and applications of the product, as well as providing information on data quality, methodology and installation instructions.

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In the context of its "admin-first" paradigm, Statistics Canada is prioritizing the use of non-survey sources to produce official statistics. This paradigm critically relies on non-survey sources that may have a nearly perfect coverage of some target populations, including administrative files or big data sources. Yet, this coverage must be measured, e.g., by applying the capture-recapture method, where they are compared to other sources with good coverage of the same populations, including a census. However, this is a challenging exercise in the presence of linkage errors, which arise inevitably when the linkage is based on quasi-identifiers, as is typically the case. To address the issue, a new methodology is described where the capture-recapture method is enhanced with a new error model that is based on the number of links adjacent to a given record. It is applied in an experiment with public census data.

Key Words: dual system estimation, data matching, record linkage, quality, data integration, big data.

Description:

This paper introduces and explains modifications made to the Labour Force Survey estimates in January 2021. Some of these modifications include the adjustment of all LFS estimates to reflect population counts based on the 2016 Census and includes updates to 2016 Geography classification system.

Description:

This is a CD-ROM product from the Ontario Adult Literacy Survey (OALS), conducted in the spring of 1998 with the goal of providing information on: the ability of Ontario immigrants to use either English or French in their daily activities; and on their self-perceived literacy skills, training needs and barriers to training.

In order to cover the majority of Ontario immigrants, the Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) of Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Kitchener, London and St. Catharines were included in the sample. With these 6 CMAs, about 83% of Ontario immigrants were included in the sample frame. This sample of 7,107 dwellings covered the population of Ontario immigrants in general as well as specifically targetting immigrants with a mother tongue of Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Polish, and Spanish and immigrants born in the Caribbean Islands with a mother tongue of English.

Each interview was approximately 1.5 hours in duration and consisted of a half-hour questionnaire, asking demographic and literacy-related questions as well as a one-hour literacy test. This literacy test was derived from that used in the 1994 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and covered the domains of document and quantitative literacy. An overall response rate to the survey of 76% was achieved, resulting in 4,648 respondents.

Description:

The Absence from Work Survey was designed primarily to fulfill the objectives of Human Resources Development Canada. They sponsor the qualified wage loss replacement plan which applies to employers who have their own private plans to cover employee wages lost due to sickness, accident, etc. Employers who fall under the plan are granted a reduction in their quotas payable to the Unemployment Insurance Commission. The data generated from the responses to the supplement will provide input to determine the rates for quota reductions for qualified employers.

Although the Absence from Work Survey collects information on absences from work due to illness, accident or pregnancy, it does not provide a complete picture of people who have been absent from work for these reasons because the concepts and definitions have been developed specifically for the needs of the client. Absences in this survey are defined as being at least two weeks in length, and respondents are only asked the three reasons for their most recent absence and the one preceding it.

Description:

This file provides data on the characteristics of the population such as ethnic origin, labour force activity and income levels. It contains 122 variables.

The Microdata Files contain samples of anonymous responses to the 1996 Census questionnaire. The files have been carefully scrutinized to ensure the complete confidentiality of the individual responses. PUMFs enable the development of statistical information about Canadians, the families and households to which they belong, and the dwellings in which they live.

Microdata files are unique among census products in that they give users access to non-aggregated data. This makes PUMFs a powerful research tools. The user can group and manipulate these variables to suit his/her own data and research requirements. These provide quick access to a comprehensive social and economic database about Canada and its people.

All subject matter covered by the census is included in these files.

The 1996 PUMFs will only be released on CD-ROM using microcomputer applications.

Description:

Environmental protection expenditures in the business sector, preliminary data presents operating and capital expenditures made by primary and manufacturing industries in response to, or in anticipation of, environmental regulations and conventions. The results are from the Environmental Protection Expenditure Survey. The data contained in Environmental protection expenditures in the business sector help to fill important gaps in existing information on the demand side of the 'environment industry.' More specifically, it provides a measure of the cost to the industry of adopting pollution prevention and abatement technologies and other environmental protection practices. Data included in Environmental protection expenditures in the business sector are components of a national statistical database on the environment industry.

Description:

This is a user guide to the National Private Vehicle Use Survey. The purpose of the survey is to provide measures of vehicle fuel use and the determinants of fuel use. This information will provide the basis for future policy decisions aimed at reducing the fuel consumed by personal-use vehicles.

To this end, it is important to understand how consumers use their vehicles in order to design adequate energy efficiency programs and alternative energy programs. The specific objectives of the survey are: provide national estimates of annual fuel use for personal-use vehicles (includes passenger cars/light trucks and vans); provide national estimates of total distance driven; identify the main factors in the purchase of a vehicle; identify in a general fashion how households use their vehicles; develop driver profiles by sex, age, marital status, income, education and occupational group; and develop vehicle profiles by vehicle body type, model year, number of cylinders, transmission type, and presence or absence of air conditioning.

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This report presents results of the Waste Management Industry Survey, 1995, which gathered information on the financial characteristics and waste management activities undertaken in the business sector.

Description:

The National Population Health Survey (NPHS) uses the Labour Force Survey sampling frame to draw a sample of approximately 22,000 households. The sample is distributed over four quarterly collection periods. In each household, some limited information is collected from all household members and one person, aged 12 years and over, in each household is randomly selected for a more in-depth interview.

The questionnaire includes content related to health status, use of health services, determinants of health and a range of demographic and economic information. For example, the health status information includes self-perception of health, a health status index, chronic conditions, and activity restrictions. The use of health services is probed through visits to health care providers, both traditional and non-traditional, and the use of drugs and other medications. Health determinants include smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and in the first survey, emphasis has been placed on the collection of selected psycho-social factors that may influence health, such as stress, self-esteem and social support. The demographic and economic information includes age, sex, education, ethnicity, household income and labour force status.

Description:

This public use microdata file provides unaggregated data on the Aboriginal adult population - those who identify with their Aboriginal origin(s) and those who do not. For persons who identify, it contains almost 700 variables from the 1991 survey, such as, the group with which they identify, language proficiency, disability, chronic health conditions, schooling, work experience and the 1991 Census variables such as, income levels, marital status, fertility. The same census variables are provided for the population who does not identify.

Description:

The survey, begun in February 1994, monitors the smoking patterns of Canadians over a 12 month period and to measure any changes in smoking resulting from the decrease in taxes in cigarettes which took place in February 1994 in some provinces. It is related to MDF 82M0006. Updates are included in the microdata file price. A guide for this microdata file is available.

Description:

Over the past few years, Statistics Canada has conducted several analytical studies using paradata to learn more about various issues surrounding the data collection process and practices. In particular, these investigations have attempted to better understand how data collection progresses through its cycle, to identify strategic opportunities, to evaluate new collection initiatives and to improve the way the agency conducts and manages its surveys. The main objectives of this paper are to present the main results of these past and ongoing investigations describing Statistics Canada's experiences with regards to paradata. Future research plans that focus on identifying viable operational strategies that could improve efficiency or data quality are also discussed.

Description:

In one sense, a questionnaire is never complete. Test results, paradata and research findings constantly provide reasons to update and improve the questionnaire. In addition, establishments change over time and questions need to be updated accordingly. In reality, it doesn't always work like this. At Statistics Sweden there are several examples of questionnaires that were designed at one point in time and rarely improved later on. However, we are currently trying to shift the perspective on questionnaire design from a linear to a cyclic one. We are developing a cyclic model in which the questionnaire can be improved continuously in multiple rounds. In this presentation, we will discuss this model and how we work with it.

Description:

The Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH) is a monthly survey using two sources of data: a census of payroll deduction (PD7) forms (administrative data) and a survey of business establishments. This paper focuses on the processing of the administrative data, from the weekly receipt of data from the Canada Revenue Agency to the production of monthly estimates produced by SEPH.

The edit and imputation methods used to process the administrative data have been revised in the last several years. The goals of this redesign were primarily to improve the data quality and to increase the consistency with another administrative data source (T4) which is a benchmark measure for Statistics Canada's System of National Accounts people. An additional goal was to ensure that the new process would be easier to understand and to modify, if needed. As a result, a new processing module was developed to edit and impute PD7 forms before their data is aggregated to the monthly level.

This paper presents an overview of both the current and new processes, including a description of challenges that we faced during development. Improved quality is demonstrated both conceptually (by presenting examples of PD7 forms and their treatment under the old and new systems) and quantitatively (by comparison to T4 data).

Description:

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities' (FCM) Quality of Life Reporting System (QOLRS) is a means by which to measure, monitor, and report on the quality of life in Canadian municipalities. To address that challenge of administrative data collection across member municipalities the QOLRS technical team collaborated on the development of the Municipal Data Collection Tool (MDCT) which has become a key component of QOLRS' data acquisition methodology. Offered as a case study on administrative data collection, this paper argues that the recent launch of the MDCT has enabled the FCM to access reliable pan-Canadian municipal administrative data for the QOLRS.

Description:

Justice surveys represent a unique type of survey undertaken by Statistics Canada. While they all essentially use administrative data, Statistics Canada has had considerable input into the type of data that is collected as well as quality assurance methods guiding the collection of this data. This is true in the areas of policing, courts and corrections. The main crime survey, the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR), is the focus of this paper and was designed to measure the incidence of crime in Canadian society and its characteristics. The data is collected by the policing community in Canada and transmitted electronically to Statistics Canada. This paper will begin by providing an overview of the survey and its distinctive properties, such as the use of intermediaries (software vendors) that convert data from the police's information systems into the UCR survey format, following nationally defined data requirements. This level of consistency is uncommon for an administrative survey and permits a variety of opportunities for improving the overall data quality and capabilities of the survey. Various methods such as quality indicators and feedback reports are used on a regular basis and frequent two-way communication takes place with the respondents to correct existing data problems and to prevent future ones. We will discuss recent improvements to both the data itself and our collection methods that have enhanced the usability of the survey. Finally, future development of the survey will be discussed including some of the challenges that currently exist as well as those still to come.

Description:

In many countries, improved quality of economic statistics is one of the most important goals of the 21st century. First and foremost, the quality of National Accounts is in focus, regarding both annual and quarterly accounts. To achieve this goal, data quality regarding the largest enterprises is of vital importance. To assure that the quality of data for the largest enterprises is good, coherence analysis is an important tool. Coherence means that data from different sources fit together and give a consistent view of the development within these enterprises. Working with coherence analysis in an efficient way is normally a work-intensive task consisting mainly of collecting data from different sources and comparing them in a structured manner. Over the last two years, Statistics Sweden has made great progress in improving the routines for coherence analysis. An IT tool that collects data for the largest enterprises from a large number of sources and presents it in a structured and logical matter has been built, and a systematic approach to analyse data for National Accounts on a quarterly basis has been developed. The paper describes the work in both these areas and gives an overview of the IT tool and the agreed routines.

Description:

Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) prides itself in the accuracy and validity of data collected, processed and disseminated. The introduction of a Real Time Management System (RTMS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS) into field operations is aimed at enhancing the process of data collection and minimising errors with regard to locating sampled dwelling units and tracking material from one point in the survey chain to another.

The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) is a pioneering project at Stats SA where the Master sample (MS) is linked to a GPS data base, where every record listed on the MS listing book has a corresponding GPS coordinate captured for it. These GPS points allows the Survey Officer to record spatially where different records are on the ground that are being listed (i.e. shops, houses, schools, churches etc.). The captured information is then linked to a shape file which populates where the structures are on the ground in relation to the manual listing records.

Description:

The Aboriginal Children's Survey (ACS) provides an extensive set of data about Aboriginal (Métis, Inuit, and off-reserve First Nations) children under 6 years of age in urban, rural, and northern locations across Canada. The Aboriginal Children's Survey (ACS) was designed to provide a picture of the early development of Aboriginal children and the social and living conditions in which they are learning and growing.

The survey was developed by Statistics Canada and Aboriginal advisors from across the country and was conducted jointly with Human Resources and Social Development Canada.

Description:

Many survey organisations focus on the response rate as being the quality indicator for the impact of non-response bias. As a consequence, they implement a variety of measures to reduce non-response or to maintain response at some acceptable level. However, response rates alone are not good indicators of non-response bias. In general, higher response rates do not imply smaller non-response bias. The literature gives many examples of this (e.g., Groves and Peytcheva 2006, Keeter, Miller, Kohut, Groves and Presser 2000, Schouten 2004).

We introduce a number of concepts and an indicator to assess the similarity between the response and the sample of a survey. Such quality indicators, which we call R-indicators, may serve as counterparts to survey response rates and are primarily directed at evaluating the non-response bias. These indicators may facilitate analysis of survey response over time, between various fieldwork strategies or data collection modes. We apply the R-indicators to two practical examples.

Description:

Beginning in late 2006, the Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division of Statistics Canada embarked on the process of review of questions used in the Census and in surveys to produce data about Aboriginal peoples (North American Indian, Métis and Inuit). This process is essential to ensure that Aboriginal identification questions are valid measures of contemporary Aboriginal identification, in all its complexity. Questions reviewed included the following (from the Census 2B questionnaire):- the Ethnic origin / Aboriginal ancestry question;- the Aboriginal identity question;- the Treaty / Registered Indian question; and- the Indian band / First Nation Membership question.

Additional testing was conducted on Census questions with potential Aboriginal response options: the population group question (also known as visible minorities), and the Religion question. The review process to date has involved two major steps: regional discussions with data users and stakeholders, and qualitative testing. The regional discussions with over 350 users of Aboriginal data across Canada were held in early 2007 to examine the four questions used on the Census and other surveys of Statistics Canada. Data users included National Aboriginal organizations, Aboriginal Provincial and Territorial Organizations, Federal, Provincial and local governments, researchers and Aboriginal service organizations. User feedback showed that main areas of concern were data quality, undercoverage, the wording of questions, and the importance of comparability over time.

Description: This reference guide is intended for users of the Census Subdivisions Boundary File. The guide provides an overview of the file, the general methodology used to create it, and important technical information for users.

Description: The Census Subdivision Boundary File contains the boundaries of all census subdivisions which combined cover all of Canada. A census subdivision is a municipality or an area treated as an equivalent to a municipality for statistical purposes (for example, Indian reserves and unorganized territories). The file provides a framework for mapping and spatial analysis using commercially available geographic information systems (GIS) or other mapping software.

The Census Subdivision Boundary File is portrayed in Lambert conformal conic projection and is based on the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83). A reference guide is available (92-162-G).

Description: This reference guide is intended for users of the Road Network File. The guide provides an overview of the file, the general methodology used to create it, and important technical information for users.

Description: The Road Network File (RNF) is a digital representation of Canada's national road network, containing information such as street names, types, directions and address ranges. The information comes from the National Geographic Database (NGD).

A reference guide is available (92-500-G).

Description: The Guide to the Job Vacancy and Wage Survey contains a dictionary of concepts and definitions, and covers topics such as survey methodology, data collection, processing, and data quality.

Description: The Guide to the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours contains a dictionary of concepts and definitions and covers topics such as survey methodology, data collection and processing, and data quality. It also provides information on products and services, as well as the survey questionnaire.

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This report deals with Indigenous identity, Indigenous ancestry, Indigenous group, Registered or Treaty Indian status, Membership in a First Nation or Indian band, Membership in a Métis organization or Settlement, and Enrollment under an Inuit land claims agreement, and contains explanations of concepts, data quality, historical comparability and comparability with other sources, as well as information on data collection, processing and dissemination.

Description: Census of Agriculture data provide statistical information on farms and farm operators at fine geographic levels and for small subpopulations. Quality evaluation activities are essential to ensure that census data are reliable and that they meet user needs.

This report provides data quality information pertaining to the Census of Agriculture, such as sources of error, error detection, disclosure control methods, data quality indicators, response rates and collection rates.

Description: The Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) is a national survey of Canadians aged 15 and over whose everyday activities are limited because of a long-term condition or health-related problem. The 2022 CSD Concepts and Methods Guide is designed to assist CSD data users by providing relevant information on survey content and concepts, sampling design, collection methods, data processing, data quality and product availability.

Description: This report provides data quality information pertaining to the Agriculture–Population Linkage, such as sources of error, matching process, response rates, imputation rates, sampling, weighting, disclosure control methods and data quality indicators.