Society

Census takers quit due to workload

By Quan Li (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-09-13 15:11

Census takers in some Beijing districts have quit their jobs due to the heavy workload during the one-month preliminary check of the capital’s residents, the Beijing News reported Monday.

The city conducts a one-month door-to-door survey, from August 15 to September 15, to check people's registration and living conditions before the national census begins on Nov 1.

Related readings:  Fears over privacy confront census takers  On their way to taking census  Central China starts population survey  China's Sixth Population Census

But some enumerators have already quit their post ahead of the sixth national census over fears they will not be able to complete the task.

Pu Jinrong, a census instructor in Wangjing area of Beijing quit her post with three other colleagues recently. “We are swamped with work and short of hands. It’s hard to recruit workers,” she complained. The 40-year-old instructor organized and trained 20 door-to-door interviewers in July. She was in charge of a community of more than 15,000 people, the majority Korean residents.”

Besides the heavy workload, the absence of residents and the lack of cooperation added to the difficulties.

Luo Shuyun, director of a neighborhood committee in Dongcheng district of Beijing, said half of the 1,500 households in her community are not registered permanent residences. “We have interviewed each house more than once, but there are still 300 houses unchecked. What’s more, people are more cautious towards the census, such as families with more than one child and people with more than one housing properties.”

Issues such as internal migration, privacy concerns, unregistered births and house vacancies have posed a great challenge to census workers, the report said.

Authorities had planned for the possible resignation of the census workers before starting the one-month research. “We have prepared five percent more personnel, other than the 20,000 instructors and 80,000 census takers. Now the backup is on duty, but we still need more,” said Zhang Xueyuan, official from the Beijing Statistic Bureau.