Start of the residence analysis: NRW citizens have to fill out questionnaires!

Start of the residence analysis: NRW citizens have to fill out questionnaires!

From June 2, 2025, the State Statistical Office of North Rhine-Westphalia will send mail to around 21,000 citizens. These randomly selected people are legally obliged to respond to the questionnaire. The survey refers to the main apartment of the respondents on May 15, 2022. Participation in this residence analysis takes about five minutes and can be conveniently online. The aim of the analysis is to improve the efficiency and accuracy of future censuses in order to offer a reliable basis for political decisions.

The residence analysis, which will be carried out by August 2025, checks the comparison of data from registration fans with information from other administrative sources, such as the pension insurance and the Federal Employment Agency. This methodology is intended to largely avoid personal surveys and at the same time increase data quality. According to RuHR24 , a first picture of the analysis is drawn, although The results will provide a fundamental insight into the population that will provide the availability of apartments and households in Germany.

background of the residence analysis

In order to meet the current and future requirements for census data, the statistical offices of the federal government and the federal states test a new method for determining the residents. The census carried out in Germany at the end of 2022 adjusted to registration registers and sample surveys; However, these methods no longer meet the increasing requirements at the national and European level, such as Statistics.nrw explained.

The planned register science should reduce the survey effort and at the same time provide more frequent as well as current and regionally differentiated results. In this case, entries from reporters are compared with comparison registers in order to dissolve discrepancies. If there are unclear assignments or contradictory information, the residence analysis is clarified, which is carried out by post. The legal framework for the analysis is specified in the Register Centurization Act of 2021.

importance of census data

The determined census data are important for a variety of political decisions, such as for the distribution of constituencies or funding in the state financial compensation. The information is collected anonymously, which means that conclusions about individuals are excluded. This procedure not only promotes data integrity, but also the trust of citizens in the surveys.

During the residence analysis, 100,000 people are interviewed all over Germany, whereby the selected citizens in North Rhine-Westphalia are particularly important. The survey is carried out online and a pattern of the questionnaire is provided to make participation easier for the respondents. Further information is available on the websites of the statistical offices, including Statistics north , which provide additional insights into the goals and methods of the register science.