Census is extended three more days to visit final homes

Census workers will continue to conduct field work until November 3 after visiting more than 250,000 families across the Abu Dhabi emirate.

Enumerators for the 2011 Abu Dhabi census will collect data till Thursday.

ABU DHABI // Completion of the emirate-wide census has been delayed and field workers will continue visiting homes across all three municipalities this week.

Initially expected to end on October 27, the census will now run until Thursday "to ensure that we count everyone", a census official said. More than 250,000 families have been visited across the emirate.

"While some residential areas of Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and the Western Region have already been completed, in some cases there are still a few more families to visit," said Dr Yousif Al Hammadi, the census project methodology team leader from the Statistics Centre - Abu Dhabi (Scad). "The extension gives Scad more time to collect information that is as accurate as possible."

Census workers, called enumerators, will visit homes that have not responded, in addition to those that have not yet been visited. In a small number of cases, some families may be contacted if information was missed in the original interview.

Enumerators are expected to visit between 4pm and 9pm.

Residents who have not yet been visited but will be travelling this week are advised to contact Scad to schedule an interview on 800 555.

The census will ask personal details including name, age, occupation, nationality and marital status.

Scad aims to count all residents and guests who were in the emirate on Census Reference Night, October 3. Householders will be asked to answer questions about all guests who were at their home between sunset on that night and sunrise on October 4.

Despite the delay, the Scad official said the project was still considered on schedule.

"Once all the data has been received, Scad will be focused on preparing the first set of data for release," Dr Al Hammadi said.

Provisional results are expected by the end of the year and final data will be announced in May.

In 2010, the population of the emirate was estimated to be about 1.9 million, with nearly 61 per cent living in the capital, about 29 per cent in Al Ain, and 9 per cent in Al Gharbia, according to data published in Scad's latest Statistical Yearbook of Abu Dhabi.