Do all countries undertake a Census like the UK?
Most, but not all, countries conduct regular censuses of their populations. For many countries this is a statutory requirement, sometimes at the supranational level (e.g the European Union). In 1995 the United Nations even passed a resolution calling on all its member countries to compile census data by 2004. However, a census is only possible with the general consent of the population and in some countries this is no longer present. For example, Germany has not taken a full census since the census planned for 1983 had to be postponed until 1987 because of public concern over the proposed use of census returns to update local population registers. The Netherlands have not had a census since 1971, following a high level of refusal in 1971, and poor test returns in 1979. Both these and a number of other countries (including Denmark) have turned to alternative data sources particularly population and housing registers and sample surveys as the source of population statistics.
