COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EVALUATION Accompanying the document Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on European statistics on population and housing, amending Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 and repealing Regulations (EC) No 763/2008 and (EU) No 1260/2013

EN EN
EUROPEAN
COMMISSION
Brussels, 20.1.2023
SWD(2023) 13 final
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT
EVALUATION
Accompanying the document
Proposal for a
REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on
European statistics on population and housing, amending Regulation (EC) No 862/2007
and repealing Regulations (EC) No 763/2008 and (EU) No 1260/2013
{COM(2023) 31 final} - {SEC(2023) 38 final} - {SWD(2023) 11 final} -
{SWD(2023) 12 final} - {SWD(2023) 14 final} - {SWD(2023) 15 final}
Offentligt
KOM (2023) 0031 - SWD-dokument
Europaudvalget 2023
2
Table of contents
1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................4
1.1. Political and legal context........................................................................................ 4
1.2. Purpose of the evaluation......................................................................................... 5
1.3. Scope of the evaluation............................................................................................ 6
2. BACKGROUND TO THE INTERVENTION ...........................................................6
2.1. Initial problem/needs statement............................................................................... 6
2.2. Description of the intervention and its objectives.................................................... 7
2.3. Baseline and points of comparison, including evolution of policy needs ............... 9
3. IMPLEMENTATION/STATE OF PLAY ................................................................13
3.1. Inputs and external factors..................................................................................... 13
3.2. Description of the current situation........................................................................ 14
4. METHOD..................................................................................................................16
4.1. Short description of methodology.......................................................................... 16
4.2. Limitations and robustness of findings.................................................................. 18
5. ANALYSIS AND ANSWERS TO THE EVALUATION QUESTIONS ................19
5.1. Relevance – initial situation (RI)........................................................................... 19
5.2. Relevance – evolution until today (RE)................................................................. 21
5.3. Effectiveness (EE) ................................................................................................. 23
5.4. Efficiency (EI) ....................................................................................................... 27
5.5. Coherence – internal (CI) ...................................................................................... 34
5.6. Coherence – external (CE)..................................................................................... 36
5.7. EU added value (EU)............................................................................................. 38
5.8. Statistical quality (SQ)........................................................................................... 41
6. CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................................46
6.1. What is working well............................................................................................. 46
6.2. What is not working well....................................................................................... 46
6.3. Lessons learnt ........................................................................................................ 48
ANNEX 1: PROCEDURAL INFORMATION ................................................................49
ANNEX 2: METHODS AND ANALYTICAL MODELS...............................................56
ANNEX 3: STATISTICAL DATASETS OF EUROPEAN STATISTICS ON
POPULATION PUBLISHED UNDER THE INTERVENTION.............................68
ANNEX 4: COMPLETE EVALUATION FRAMEWORK.............................................90
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Glossary
Term or acronym Meaning or definition
Census Decennial data collection on population and housing census
Census Hub Web tool for central access to European census outputs
Census Regulation Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 on population and housing censuses
CES Conference of European Statisticians
Demography Regulation Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 on European demographic
statistics
ECOFIN Council Economic and Financial Affairs Council
EEA European Economic Area
EFTA European Free Trade Association
EPC Economic Policy Committee
ESOP European statistics on population
ESS European Statistical System
ESSC European Statistical System Committee
EU European Union
Eurobase Public database of European statistics disseminated by Eurostat
Eurostat Statistical office of the European Union
FTE Full-time equivalent
ISG Interservice group of the European Commission
Migration Regulation Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Community statistics on
migration and international protection
MS Member State(s) of the European Union
NSI National statistical institute
OPC Open public consultation
TEC Treaty establishing the European Community
TEU Treaty on European Union
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
UNECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
4
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Political and legal context
According to Article 9 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), every national of a
Member State, in addition to their national citizenship, is also a citizen of the European
Union (EU). To develop policies to benefit the people of Europe, EU institutions need
timely, reliable, detailed, harmonised and comparable European statistics. EU institutions
also need a reliable and comparable count of the whole population of the EU. This will
help the institutions to uphold the principle of non-discrimination in all their activities,
and to defend individual citizens’ rights as enshrined in Article 10 of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of
the European Union. The Commission is required to monitor and report on the EU’s
demographic situation in line with Article 159 TFEU. EU institutions also need accurate
and comparable population figures for administrative and procedural purposes, e.g. for
qualified majority voting in the Council.
Population statistics are the backbone of all social statistics, as they provide the most
accurate and up-to-date reference information on the entire population and its basic
demographic characteristics. An accurate picture of the population, with very good
coverage and location information, is indispensable for any more detailed annual
population estimates, sample surveys, and regional analysis. Population estimates are
also needed to obtain per capita indicators in statistics. Population statistics provide the
input for preparing population projections for the EU’s long-term economic and
budgetary projections in particular. Population statistics are also useful more generally
for formulating and implementing the EU’s economic, social and cohesion policies.
The Treaties oblige the European Parliament and the Council to adopt measures for
producing official statistics where necessary for EU policies (Article 338 TFEU,
formerly Article 285 TEC). Over the past three decades, many EU policy areas have
experienced strongly increasing and evolving needs for complete, coherent, comparable,
reliable and regular European statistics. The statistics needed in these policy areas cover
population, demography and international migration, and are crucial to support evidence-
based policymaking.
After an initial period of voluntary collections of data from Member States, various EU
institutions expressed a need for a better common basis for population and migration
statistics, including for legislation at EU level1
. Therefore, the Commission (Eurostat)
initiated legislative work in 2005 on several legal instruments to establish a legal basis
for these statistics to address policy needs in a proportionate way. Relevant legal acts
adopted as part of this legislative work include:
 Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 on population and housing censuses2
(‘Census
Regulation’);
 Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 on European demographic statistics3
(‘Demography Regulation’);
1
For instance, the 2001 Laeken European Council, the 2003 Thessaloniki European Council, and European
Parliament resolution 2003/2157 of 6 November 2003.
2
Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on
population and housing censuses (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 218, 13.8.2008, p. 14).
5
 Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Community statistics on migration and
international protection4
(‘Migration Regulation’), in particular Article 3 thereof
on international migration, migrant stocks and acquisitions of citizenship.
The Commission also adopted various implementing measures to help implement these
regulations. In this staff working document, we will use the term ‘the intervention’ as a
general term to describe these three Regulations and their implementing measures.
Many EU policy areas have become increasingly dynamic over the past decade in
response to social, economic and environmental developments. These developments
include demographic changes5
, migration6
and the increasing exposure of Europeans to
natural disasters in the wake of climate change7
. Even while this intervention was being
implemented, evidence-based policymaking in many areas has continued to evolve. This
policymaking now requires even more harmonised, detailed, frequent and timely
European statistics on population and migration. Many of these policy areas also require
statistics on small or functional geographies (e.g. grids and cities, and breakdowns by
functional area such as urban and rural areas). Moreover, statistical needs are expected to
continue to change rapidly in this increasingly dynamic policy and societal environment.
1.2. Purpose of the evaluation
The purpose of this evaluation is to assess official statistics at EU level on population,
demographic events and international migration. The evaluation aims to assess whether
these statistics have been providing sufficient data evidence to support both EU
policymaking and the functioning of EU political decision-making. This includes
evaluating the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, EU value added, and
statistical quality (a contextual ad hoc criterion) of all mandatory and voluntary European
statistics produced in these domains. In particular, relevance will be measured against: (i)
the initial policy and institutional needs before 2005(at the start of the intervention), and
(ii) current and evolving needs over time. The geographic coverage of the statistics in
question is the European Economic Area (EEA), and the time coverage includes all
reference dates and periods of statistics between 1 January 2008 (the first reference year
of the Migration Regulation) and 31 December 2020. This means in particular that
census outputs only from a single round (2011) can be fully evaluated. This is because
statistical outputs from the previous 2001 round were produced before work began on the
intervention, and outputs from the ongoing 2021 round will not be available for the
whole EU at the time of concluding this evaluation. However, administrative and
procedural aspects of the 2021 EU census round (e.g. cost and burden estimates,
coherence with international recommendations) will be included in this evaluation.
3
Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 2013 on
European demographic statistics (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 330, 10.12.2013, p. 39).
4
Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007 on
Community statistics on migration and international protection and repealing Council Regulation
(EEC) No 311/76 on the compilation of statistics on foreign workers (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L
199, 31.7.2007, p. 23).
5
See Commission Report on the Impact of Demographic Change, 2020.
6
Communication on A European Agenda on Migration, COM(2015) 240,
7
Communication on The European Green Deal, COM(2019) 640.
6
The results of this evaluation will inform a decision on whether follow-up action is
needed to update or redevelop the existing legal base given current and further evolving
needs for policies and decision-making in the EU.
1.3. Scope of the evaluation
This evaluation covers European statistics that describe the population residing in the
EU. The key underlying concept is thus the place of residence of a person according to a
given definition. Currently, annual statistics on demographic characteristics of the
resident population are published under the Demography Regulation. This evaluation
also covers more detailed statistics in areas such as the family, household and housing
situations of the resident population. These more detailed statistics are currently
published every 10 years under the Census Regulation. Finally, this evaluation will also
consider annual statistics published under Article 3 of the Migration Regulation on: (i)
migrant stocks (resident population with migration history); (ii) international migration
flows (changes of residence between countries both within and entering/leaving the EU);
and (iii) citizenship. A comprehensive table of datasets used for this evaluation is
provided in Annex 3.
A number of statistical collections are out of the scope of this evaluation. For example,
statistics on asylum and managed migration under Articles 4 to 7 of the Migration
Regulation address administrative and judicial events related to the migration of non-EU
nationals. These statistics complement the statistics based on actual residence under this
intervention, and the legal basis was revised only very recently8
. Statistics on asylum and
managed migration are therefore beyond the scope of this evaluation. In addition,
European statistics on persons and households based on data at individual level collected
from samples are out of the scope of this evaluation, as these are governed by a separate
legal basis only recently adopted9
. Derived statistical indicators in the European System
of Accounts and regional statistics based on population counts are also out of scope and
will not be evaluated. All these related or dependent European statistics are therefore
considered external factors to the intervention evaluated here.
The evaluation covers all Member States and EEA/EFTA countries.
The time period covered by the evaluation is 2005-2021. This includes the population
and housing censuses in the EU of 2011 and 2021.
2. BACKGROUND TO THE INTERVENTION
2.1. Initial problem/needs statement
Until 2005, to ensure the functioning of the EU in accordance with the Treaties,
policymakers needed a variety of statistics for evidence-based policymaking in areas
such as: (i) social and economic cohesion; (ii) structural and regional cohesion; (iii) civil
8
Regulation (EU) 2020/851 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2020 amending
Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection (Text
with EEA relevance) (OJ L 198, 22.6.2020, p. 1).
9
Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 October 2019
establishing a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on
data at individual level collected from samples […] (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 261I,
14.10.2019, p. 1).
7
rights; (iv) migration and internal affairs; (v) the environment; (vi) energy and (vii)
health. In particular, common official statistics for the EU were needed on:
 population and housing censuses (conducted every 10 years) covering population,
family, households, and housing at a very detailed territorial level (down to the
municipality);
 annual population and demographic events including at national and regional
levels; and
 annual international migration at national level, including acquisition of
citizenship.
In addition to policy needs, EU institutions need high-quality statistical information on
population and demography for other purposes. This includes but is not limited to:
 regular, total, usually resident population at national level for voting in the
Council10
;
 regular population projections for EU long-term economic and budgetary
projections within the European Semester11
;
 annual monitoring of the EU’s demographic situation12
.
Figure 1 presents a detailed visual map of the various statistics needs and their policy and
institutional drivers.
Before the intervention (i.e. before the introduction of the Census, Demography and
Migration Regulations), Member States produced all related statistics at EU level on a
voluntary basis coordinated by Eurostat. These statistics were produced partly under a
soft formalisation through so-called gentlemen’s agreements between Eurostat and the
national statistical institutes (NSIs). However, the experience with these arrangements
before 2005 showed that this approach could not meet the policy and societal needs at the
time. In particular, there were serious and well-known gaps in the completeness,
coherence, comparability, and punctuality of statistics disseminated at EU level until
2005.
Article 338 TFEU (formerly Article 285 TEC) obliges the legislator to adopt measures
for the production of official statistics where necessary for EU policies. Given the
shortcomings with this system as it existed until 2005, the Commission took the initiative
and proposed legislation to address the gaps in the statistics needed for evidence-based
EU policymaking.
2.2. Description of the intervention and its objectives
The main reason for legislative action taken after 2005 was the insufficient completeness,
coherence, comparability, timeliness and punctuality of the most important topical
statistics. Before 2005, these data were produced based on voluntary data collections.
10
The 2001 Treaty of Nice introduced an element of weighting by total usually resident population of the
Member States in Council voting procedures. Since 1 November 2014, this is expressed in the
qualified majority voting under Article 16(4) TEU.
11
The ECOFIN Council mandates to the EPC on the economic and fiscal implications of ageing
populations establish a need for common demographic projections to be provided by Eurostat (initial
doc. ECFIN/EPC(2006)51285 of 22 May 2006, latest doc. 8743/21 adopted on 18 June 2021).
12
Required under Article 159 TFEU (ex Article 143 TEC).
8
Given the experience of weaknesses in the statistics caused by the unregulated nature of
the voluntary data collections, Eurostat considered regulation at EU level necessary to
address the statistical-quality gaps effectively. The Commission therefore adopted new
proposals in 2005, 2007 and 201113
for the Migration, Census and Demography
Regulations respectively. These proposals are introduced in Section 1 as the legislative
inputs to the Migration, Census and Demography Regulations (see also Section 3). The
explanatory memoranda accompanying these proposals outline the policy drivers, at the
time the legislative proposal was being drawn up, for the statistical needs identified.
Figure 1 sets out a detailed list of these policy drivers.
Eurostat prepared the legislative proposals to address the objectives of this intervention
in a proportionate but effective way. In particular, the general objectives were to:
 provide sufficient data evidence (sufficient in terms of statistical content and
quality) on national and regional population, demography and international
migration for EU policymaking;
 address EU institutional needs for statistical information of the highest quality for
the functioning of the EU in accordance with the Treaties.
The specific objectives were to:
 disseminate complete, comparable, reliable (i.e. accurate, timely and punctual)
and regular EU-level statistics on:
 persons, families, households, dwellings and housing arrangements from
population and housing censuses;
 demography, population stock, and population balance;
 international migration and citizenship;
 total population at national level for qualified majority voting in the Council;
 provide a sufficient basis of demography and migration statistics to produce
population projections for EU long-term economic and budgetary projections; and
 ensure by comprehensive, accurate and comparable metadata including statistical-
quality documentation (see Annex 3 for a comprehensive inventory of data
collections in each domain).
Finally, operational objectives breaking down each specific objective are to provide
individual statistical products (e.g. exact cross-tabulations needed for a given statistical
unit) serving detailed needs for a given reference time or period. At this level of detail,
the three legislative proposals deliberately sought a balance between two sets of
objectives: (i) essential operational objectives, to be included as data and metadata
transmission obligations in the legal base; and (ii) auxiliary operational objectives, to be
implemented by initiating or continuing voluntary data collections outside the legal base.
Annex 3 contains a comprehensive tabulation of operational objectives/outputs
(datasets).
All three legislative proposals upheld a basic principle to ensure proportionality, i.e. to
limit regulation to the minimum necessary to deliver on these objectives. This was
achieved by proposing to regulate only the essential statistical output (operational
objectives) in terms of statistical content and quality. With a legal base adopted at EU
level, the targeted quality improvements were to be achieved as follows:
13
Proposals COM(2005) 375, COM(2007) 69, and COM(2011) 903.
9
 completeness (of data and metadata across all Member States) through reporting
obligations for all Member States on a common set of mandatory data and
metadata;
 coherence (across statistical outputs for a single reporting country) and
comparability (across reporting countries for a single statistical output) through
legal provisions on common statistical definitions, topics and breakdowns,
accompanied by harmonised methodological guidance in each domain;
 timeliness (reducing the time between the end of the reference period and
dissemination of a statistical output) and punctuality (reducing the time between
the scheduled and actual dissemination of a statistical output) through legally
fixed common transmission deadlines for all mandatory data and metadata
collections.
However, such firm output orientation entails particular need for comprehensive quality
reporting across the entire statistical production process (the last specific objective). This
was reflected in dedicated provisions on mandatory metadata and/or quality reporting
across all proposals.
2.3. Baseline and points of comparison, including evolution of policy needs
Most statistics included in this intervention had already been collected on a voluntary
basis before 2005. The situation before 2005 – i.e. the content and quality of all relevant
statistics disseminated at EU level until the first reference periods of the legal bases14
– is
thus the baseline to which the post-intervention situation should be compared. In all three
statistical domains (the population and housing census; demography statistics; and
international migration statistics), the pre-intervention situation is given by all public data
and metadata available on Eurobase for the respective domain-specific pre-regulation
periods. The post-intervention situation is given by all public data and metadata on
Eurobase for the respective domain-specific regulated periods up to and including 2019
(see the concise overview in Table 1 and detailed data collections to be traced back
across the points of comparison in Annex 315
).
14
First regulated reference years following the intervention: 2008 for mandatory statistics under the
Migration Regulation, 2011 for the EU census programme under the Census Regulation, and 2013 for
mandatory statistics under the Demography Regulation.
15
The census domain is special because the currently ongoing 2021 census round is only the second one
implemented under the Census Regulation. Therefore, information from the 2021 round will be
Table 1 – Pre-/post-intervention situations for each domain
Domain Pre-intervention
(Member States send
statistics to Eurostat
voluntarily)
Post-intervention
(Member States send statistics to
Eurostat in line with EU
regulations)
Population and housing
census
Census rounds 1990/1991,
2001
Census rounds 2011 (completed),
2021 (ongoing)
Demography Annual data until ref. year
2012
Annual data for ref. years 2013-
2020
International migration incl.
citizenship
Annual data until ref. year
2007
Annual data for ref. years 2008-
2020
10
The pre- and post-intervention situations are also helpful points of comparison for
determining the problem/needs definition. More precisely, two reference times are fixed:
(i) the pre-2005 situation establishing the original policy drivers that led to the statistical
needs identified for the intervention; and (ii) the post-2021 situation anticipating evolved
policy drivers for the medium-term future after the 2021 census round. This comparison
will be a key element of this evaluation, enabling an updated assessment of the relevance
of the intervention in various policy contexts that experienced a great deal of change over
the past decade (see Figure 1 outlining the evolution of broad policy drivers between
2005 and 2021; details are presented under the relevance assessment in Section 5).
Therefore, a related key element of this evaluation is a detailed assessment of the
voluntary data collections that were initiated in parallel to the implementation of this
intervention, often to address ad hoc urgent policy needs for statistics. These include, for
instance, data collections on new migration flows after the United Kingdom left the EU
and new infra-annual statistics responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. All of these ad
hoc voluntary data collections are also included in Annex 3.
Finally, there is a general lack of sufficiently detailed background information on this
intervention. This is because requirements for impact assessments at the time (before
2005) were far less detailed than they are today. For this reason, significant information
gaps were encountered when attempting to reconstruct a comprehensive and reliable
picture of the baseline (the pre-2005 situation and initial assumptions determining the
intervention). Therefore, the default baseline is sometimes complemented by specific
accessible points of comparison – for example a hypothetical scenario of perfect
statistical quality – when evaluating certain quality indicators.
included in this evaluation to the extent it is available (mostly procedural information such as
resources and costs, but no statistical outputs yet), and the year 2021 is listed in Table 1 in parentheses.
11
Figure 1 – Detailed problem definition including initial EU policy and institutional drivers, the relation of these drivers to specific objectives, and how the problems and needs have developed from then until today
Statistical needs (pre-2005) Specific objectives
regular total population at national level of
highest quality
regular European statistics on population
and housing censuses incl. municipality level
regular European statistics on population
and demographic events incl. regional levels
regular European statistics on international
migration at national level
Sufficient statistical quality in terms of:
• completeness
• coherence and comparability
• reliability (accuracy, timeliness,
punctuality)
• frequency
regular population projections
Disseminate decennial European
statistics on population and housing
censuses down to LAU level
Disseminate annual European statistics
on population and demographic events
down to NUTS3 level
Disseminate annual European statistics
on international migration at national
level
Disseminate annual total population at
national level complying with a strict
definition based on 12 months’
residence
Disseminate regular population
projections at national and NUTS3 levels
Disseminate comprehensive, accurate
and comparable metadata including
statistical quality documentation
Statistical needs (post-2021)
regular total population at national
level of highest quality
more detailed integrated
European statistics on population incl.
demographic events, international and
regional migration
more harmonised statistical concepts
across all outputs, in particular
population base
detailed and functional geographic
breakdowns: grids, cities, functional
areas (DEGURBA)
Sufficient statistical quality in terms of:
• completeness
• better coherence and
comparability (population base)
• reliability incl. better timeliness
• higher frequency
regular population projections
EU policy drivers (2005)
EU institutional drivers EU institutional drivers
additional EU policy drivers (2021)
annual monitoring of the EU demographic situation
under Article 143 TEC
procedures for voting in the Council depend on total
population since Treaty of Nice
EU long-term economic and budgetary projections
within the European Semester based on Ecofin Council
mandate
annual monitoring of the EU demographic situation
under Article 159 TFEU
procedures for qualified majority voting in the
Council based on Article 16(4) TEU
EU long-term economic and budgetary projections
within the European Semester based on Ecofin
Council mandate
• backbone of annual population estimates, sample
surveys, and regional analysis (many policy areas)
• labour market developments (economic and social
policies)
• challenges related to ageing (economic, social,
health policies)
• all derived ‘per capita’ indicators (many policy areas)
• monitoring the EU sustainable development strategy
(many policy areas)
• economic, social and territorial cohesion, with
particular focus on the least favoured regions
• migrant populations incl. socioeconomic
backgrounds (migration and integration policies)
• access to decent housing (social inclusion policy)
• energy, water and other consumption by buildings
(economic and environmental policies)
structural flexibility to adapt data
collections to quickly evolving policy
needs incl. quick crisis response
• policy and research users keep asking for an EU-
wide harmonised population-base definition
• policy and research users also want data on
vulnerable groups, to reduce double counting, and
to reduce migration-flow inconsistencies
• cohesion and regional policies
• access to services, exposure risks, crisis response
• development of rural areas (long-term vision)
biggest known disruption drivers (all policy areas):
• migration (past experience, potentially recurrent),
• pandemics (ongoing, potentially recurrent),
• climate change (started, staying for next decades)
• need for comparable European statistics – across
the EU and over time with fine granularity
• improved use of existing administrative data
specific new topics and characteristics:
equality/non-discrimination, housing,
specific migratory movements
• equality/non-discrimination policies
• European Green Deal
• free movement and labour mobility
12
Figure 2 – Complete intervention logic: from initial needs to current impacts
Problem/needs (pre-2005)
• Article 338 TFEU (ex Article 285 TEC) obliges the legislator to “adopt
measures for the production of statistics where necessary for the
performance of the activities of the Union”
• Evidence-based policy-making in various EU policy areas needs
complete, coherent, comparable, reliable and regular European
statistics on:
o population and housing censuses incl. municipality level;
o demography incl. regional levels;
o international migration at national level.
• EU institutions need information of the highest quality on population
and demography for the functioning of the EU in accordance with
the Treaties. This information includes:
o regular total national populations for voting in the Council;
o regular population projections for EU long-term economic and
budgetary projections within the European Semester;
o monitoring: annual EU demographic situation under Article
159 TFEU (ex Article 143 TEC), and the EU sustainable
development strategy (quality of life).
• Census and population statistics are the backbone of other statistics
• So far, voluntary collections, partly based on ‘gentlemen’s
agreements’, are the only means of producing such statistics
Specific objectives
• Disseminate complete, coherent, comparable and reliable European
statistics on;
o decennial population and housing censuses down to LAU level;
o annual population and demographic events down to NUTS3
level;
o annual international migration at national level;
o annual total population at national level complying with a
strict twelve-month definition for qualified majority voting;
o regular population projections at national and NUTS3 levels for
EU long-term economic and budgetary projections.
• Disseminate comprehensive, accurate and comparable metadata
including statistical quality documentation
Inputs
• Quality framework for European statistics
o R 223/2009
o European statistics code of practice
• EU census legislation
o R 763/2008
o IRs 1201/2009, 519/2010, 1151/2010
o IRs 2017/543, 2017/712, 2017/881
o IR 2018/1799
o Explanatory notes 2011 + 2021
• Demographic statistics legislation
o R 1260/2013
o IR 205/2014
• International migration statistics legislation
o R 862/2007
o IR 351/2010
• EU and MS human and financial resources
Activities
• MS mandatory data and metadata collections
o Decennial EU population and housing
censuses starting from reference year 2011
o Annual statistics on population and vital
events for reference years 2013-2027 (sunset
clause)
o Annual statistics on international migration,
migrant stocks and citizenship starting from
reference year 2008
• MS voluntary data and metadata collections to
address evolving policy needs
o Auxiliary population and demographic
statistics
o Auxiliary migration statistics
• Eurostat methodological guidance, data validation,
quality assurance and dissemination
• Eurostat EU-level stakeholder management (Expert
groups, Commission reports to EP and Council, etc.)
Outputs
• High-quality European statistical data and metadata
o 2011 EU population and housing census
o Annual statistics on population and vital events
o Annual statistics on international migration, migrant stocks and
citizenship
o Annual total population at national level for qualified majority voting
in the Council
• Long-term and short-term population projections
• Dissemination products publicly available
o 2011 EU census results and quality reports on Census Hub
o Annual population, demography and migration datasets and quality
reports on Eurobase
o Topical statistical analysis and publications (e.g. Statistics Explained,
Statistical Atlas on 2011 EU census, interactive publication on
Demography of Europe)
• Commission reports to EP and Council, and to the public
o 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021 reports on R 862/2007
o 2018 report on R 1260/2013
Impacts
• Policy-makers at all levels in the EU use evidence from European statistics on
population, demography and international migration
• Statistical information on population and demography serves the functioning
of the EU in accordance with the Treaties
• Basis for other statistics (samples of persons and households, nat. accounts)
• Rich and reliable information on European population is a global public good
available to everybody free of charge, and with a wide range of user groups
Results
• EU policy cycle based on high-quality official statistics and analysis on
population, demography and international migration at EU, national,
regional and local levels in many policy areas: regional, structural, migration,
social, economic, environmental, health, internal affairs […]
• Qualified majority voting in the Council based on total population at national
level, EU long-term economic and budgetary projections within the
European Semester based on population projections (Ageing Report 2021),
2020 Report on the Impact of Demographic Change (Article 159 TFEU)
• All statistics users benefit from public, comparable statistics and quality
information on population and its demographic and socioeconomic
characteristics, including improved academic research and media reporting
External factors: related or depending European statistics (asylum and managed migration statistics incl. seasonal workers, samples of persons and households, European System of Accounts), international statistical cooperation (UNSD, UNECE/CES, etc.), demographic research
activities at EU and international levels, policy cycle at EU and Member-State levels, societal background – such as demographic change, economic climate
General objectives
• Provide sufficient data evidence on national and regional population,
demography and international migration for policy-making at EU,
national, and sub-national levels
• Address EU institutional and monitoring needs for high-quality
statistical information in accordance with the Treaties
13
3. IMPLEMENTATION/STATE OF PLAY
A comprehensive overview of the intervention logic and its implementation steps
down to current results and impacts is provided in Figure 2.
3.1. Inputs and external factors
As noted in Section 2, the intervention logic is closely linked to the legislative initiatives
put forward by the Commission. The Commission considered the legal acts (i.e. the
Census, Demography and Migration Regulations) to be the key instruments for
producing outputs (high-quality official statistics and quality documentation) that deliver
on the objectives of the intervention. Therefore, all legal acts adopted under the
intervention are considered as inputs for this evaluation16
. Figure 2 contains a
comprehensive list of these inputs. In this context, Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on
European statistics17
(the ‘European statistics Regulation’) extends the mentioned
legislative inputs by providing the general legal base for a common quality framework
for all official statistics produced at EU level, including all domains evaluated here.
The resource inputs to the intervention were the human and financial resources at both
EU level (mainly Eurostat staff and calls for grant proposals organised by Eurostat) and
national level (mainly staff of NSIs and national funding for the data collections). The
adoption of the legal bases created legal obligations that ensured the stable availability of
these resources during the implementation of the Census, Demography and Migration
Regulations. A quantification of these resources will be a central element of the
evaluation method described in Section 4.
Various external factors provide important context – either to the implementation process
or to the outputs of the intervention. These external factors are addressed in the
paragraphs below.
Related European statistics are those official statistics disseminated by Eurostat that are
similar enough to the domains addressed by this intervention to raise problems of
coherence and interdependence. However, they are conceptually or methodologically
distinct enough that they were considered out of scope of the intervention. Among the
most relevant domains are asylum and managed migration statistics, which are mostly
regulated under Articles 4-7 of the Migration Regulation and deal with administrative
and judicial procedures related to migration (e.g. asylum applications and decisions,
Dublin procedures, enforcement of immigration legislation, and residence permits).
There are close conceptual links to the statistics considered under this intervention, but
the relevant statistical units are profoundly different: resident population of a given
geographic area and its changes (this intervention) versus migration-related
administrative or judicial acts. Furthermore, samples of persons and households generally
16
This also follows previous approaches to evaluating statistical interventions, e.g. SWD(2019) 425
Evaluation of the European Fishery Statistics.
17
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on
European statistics and repealing Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1101/2008 of the European Parliament
and of the Council on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical
Office of the European Communities, Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community Statistics,
and Council Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom establishing a Committee on the Statistical Programmes
of the European Communities (Text with relevance for the EEA and for Switzerland) (OJ L 87,
31.3.2009, p. 164).
14
depend on the full-enumeration population statistics under this intervention (sampling
frames). They thus share many statistical concepts and definitions of this intervention,
but on the other hand they are fundamentally different from a methodological
perspective. The recent adoption of Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 on European statistics
relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from
samples (footnote 9) has created a new context for the population statistics evaluated in
this staff working document. Finally, national accounts18
use population as well as
household and dwelling figures from censuses to produce derived indicators.
International statistical cooperation creates an environment of common concepts and
definitions in which many ESS members participate. Eurostat actively contributes to –
and promotes – this environment at various levels to foster the international
harmonisation of official statistics. Key aspects of this environment are the statistical
coordination and governance activities coordinated globally by the UN Statistical
Division and for the European region of the United Nations by the UN Economic
Commission for Europe (UNECE). Networks of experts organised by these United
Nations bodies produce and regularly update international guidelines (such as the
Recommendations for the Censuses of Population and Housing endorsed by the
Conference of European Statisticians).
Demographic research activities at EU and international levels have been an element of
attention during the period of implementation of this intervention. One demographic
research activity has been in particular focus recently: the concept of actual presence.
This concept is related to the usual-residence concept, and has been the focus of recent
research using new data sources to measure migration and cross-border mobility, such as
mobile devices, social media networks, satellite images and internet platforms19
. Another
area of research where Eurostat is an independent actor is the harmonised population
projections for the whole EU based on European demographic data. Eurostat corresponds
regularly with the international community in this area and with ESS partners. Eurostat
projections are a key input to EU long-term economic and budgetary projections
mandated by the Council (footnote 11).
3.2. Description of the current situation
Based on the above inputs and external factors, Member States engaged in several
activities to implement the three Regulations comprising the intervention. The first
activity by Member States was the development and operationalisation of mandatory data
and metadata collections under the newly adopted legal bases. Eurostat also took action,
further processing the data collected from Member States to help the dissemination of
European statistics. Eurostat’s action in this area focused in particular on data validation
and quality assurance, as well as on methodological guidance where necessary to
implement common statistical concepts coherently in national data collections. Finally,
Eurostat also collaborates at EU level and internationally including with statistical
producers, policy users, EU institutions and international organisations (see Section 4).
18
Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the
European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (Text with EEA relevance)
(OJ L 174, 26.6.2013, p. 1).
19
E.g. Ricciato et al., Towards a methodological framework for estimating present population density from
mobile network operator data, Pervasive and Mobile Computing 68, 101263, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmcj.2020.101263.
15
The implementation of the intervention can be considered as completed to the extent that
all mandatory data collections have now entered a mature phase characterised by routine
and robust production processes that have now been established for some years. When
necessary, these processes continue to undergo mostly occasional, technical or small
methodological updates20
. This is illustrated by the generally very good compliance of
national statistics providers with the legislation in force, as documented in regular
implementation reports to the European Parliament and the Council for the annual data
collections21
. Eurostat monitors legal compliance regularly, and this led to some bilateral
exchanges with some Member States at technical level, but outputs generally achieve a
high level of compliance.
The statistical outputs being generated by the intervention have resulted in tangible
benefits for statistics users. Firstly, the statistics help to inform evidence-based EU
policymaking in many areas such as: (i) social and economic cohesion; (ii) structural and
regional cohesion; (iii) civil rights; (iv) migration and internal affairs; (v) environment;
(vi) energy; and (vii) health. Moreover, total population at national level (based on a
strict application of the twelve-month definition of usual residence, reported under
Article 4 of the Demography Regulation) is used to verify the population quota in
qualified majority voting of the Council. Furthermore, annual demographic statistics and
projections inform EU institutions to ensure the functioning of the EU. For instance,
these statistics and projections contributed to the 2021 Ageing Report22
and are a basis for
the EU’s long-term economic and budgetary projections under the European Semester.
They were also used for the 2020 Report on the Impact of Demographic Change23
addressing Article 159 TFEU (formerly Article 143 TEC). Finally, statistical outputs
from this intervention are among the most widely consulted European statistics. Since
2016, international migration statistics have been the most visited of the thematic
sections on the website, with strong and continuing user interest. Similarly, the
periodically updated ‘Statistics Explained’ article on migration and migrant population
statistics24
has established itself since 2016 as one of the most frequently consulted
‘Statistics Explained’ pages.
However, there are two substantial developments that could not have been foreseen at the
time the legal bases for the intervention were being drawn up.
The first of these developments is the rapid change in relevant policy drivers over the
past decade. There has been particularly rapid change brought by: (i) demographic
developments including migration and ageing; (ii) the Green Deal; (iii) fundamental
rights monitoring; and (iv) the urbanisation and integration of rural areas. This created a
20
Again, the census domain is special due to its less frequent nature: the practice established by the Census
Regulation is that each census round must be specified by dedicated implementing legislation, thus
allowing a limited element of flexibility to adapt to evolving needs between census rounds.
21
Previous reports to the European Parliament and the Council: COM(2012) 528, COM(2015) 374,
COM(2018) 594, COM(2021) 489 on the implementation of the Migration Regulation;
COM(2018) 843 on the implementation of the Demography Regulation.
22
https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/2021-ageing-report-economic-and-budgetary-projections-eu-
member-states-2019-2070_en
23
COM(2020) 241 and accompanying SWD(2021) 46.
24
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics
16
situation where statistics producers, who were still implementing relatively recent
obligations under the intervention, were confronted with new and quickly changing
policy needs for statistics. Often these needs were out of scope of the recently enacted
legal bases.
The second development is the equally rapid change in the relevant data sources, a
change that was also not anticipated by the legislation. There were three aspects to this
rapid change in data sources: (i) the rapid improvement in the quality and accessibility
for statistical purposes of administrative sources available in an increasing number of
Member States; (ii) the establishment of large-scale IT systems and interoperability
platforms at EU level; and (iii) the emergence of ‘big data’, including privately held data
sources. As a result of these two main developments, new or changed policy needs were
emerging in parallel with developments in data sources and methodologies that could not
be properly exploited within the legal framework.
In conclusion, the current situation is characterised by a firm legal framework that
emerged from the intervention, and very good overall compliance by all Member States
with this framework. This evaluation should therefore focus on the legal framework’s
ability not only to deliver on the initial objectives of the intervention, but also to remain
relevant in a highly dynamic policy, technical and methodological context.
4. METHOD
4.1. Short description of methodology
This evaluation assessed the performance of the current legal framework on European
population statistics according to six criteria: relevance (2005 situation and evolution
until today), effectiveness, efficiency, coherence (internal and external), EU added value
and statistical quality. To achieve this, and to answer the evaluation questions in
Section 5, Eurostat assessed two broad perspectives: (i) how the statistics are produced
from source to publication; and (ii) how these publications are received by the statistics
users. The full evaluation framework (criteria, questions, indicators and evidence
sources) is provided in Annex 4.
The initiative on redeveloping European statistics on population (ESOP)25
was published
in March 2021. It relies on a back-to back evaluation and impact assessment. The
combined evaluation roadmap and inception impact assessment was publicly consulted in
April 2021. Eurostat then carried out the evaluation, impact assessment and stakeholder
consultation between May 2021 and February 2022 with the support of an external
contractor and guidance from an interservice steering group (ISG) composed of
representatives of 16 Commission Directorates-General (DG) (see Annex 1, point 2).
Eurostat identified the following evidence and corresponding sources to be used for
evaluation and impact assessment:
 desk research – analysis of legal, contextual, methodological and technical
background documents relevant to the intervention;
25
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12958-European-statistics-on-
population-ESOP
17
 opinions of statistics producers – various consultation activities engaging NSIs,
national holders of administrative source data used for population statistics, and
EU citizens acting as census respondents;
 opinions of statistics users within the Commission – consultation activities and
drawing upon Eurostat’s working relations and good communication with many
Commission services and in particular the Commission network of statistical
correspondents;
 opinions of other users – various consultation activities, in particular the open
public consultation (OPC).
A detailed account of all evidence and sources used can be found in Annex 1.5.
Eurostat then developed a consultation strategy that further refined the typology of key
stakeholders as well as suitable consultation activities. The following main stakeholders
were identified.
 Data providers comprising administrative data providers (public
administrations and other organisations that provide or may provide source data
to statistical authorities for producing European statistics) and individual
respondents (individuals who are included in the data collection such as sample
surveys and census enumerations and who provide answers to the statistical
authorities collecting this data).
 Statistics producers are the NSIs and other national authorities collecting,
processing and sending relevant statistical data to Eurostat. They ensure the
quality of the data.
 Statistics users, divided into four categories set out below.
o Institutional users are the policymakers or entities directly supporting
policymaking at various administrative levels. They include EU bodies,
international organisations, national ministries, government research
institutes, and regional/local authorities.
o Other professional users contribute occasionally and indirectly to the
policymaking process at EU and other levels. These other users include
academics, research institutes, professional organisations, advisory councils,
NGOs, and individual private companies.
o Media organisations.
o The general public.
The stakeholder groups were then mapped onto suitable and proportionate consultation
activities in a detailed consultation plan (Table 2). Eurostat carried out the expert
consultations in its relevant expert groups with ESS members (the Directors of Social
Statistics group, topical working groups, and a task force) and by written consultations,
for instance with the Commission network of statistical correspondents. Eurostat also
prepared and implemented the public consultation survey and two targeted consultation
surveys partly with support from the contractor. Finally, 5 workshops and 47 in-depth
interviews were organised, hosted and documented by the contractor with Eurostat inputs
on the selection of appropriate participants, agenda setting and occasional interventions.
18
Due to the back-to-back evaluation and impact assessment, all consultation surveys
contained both: (i) sections or elements focusing on an evaluation of the current
framework (a ‘backward-looking’ assessment – analysed in this staff working
document); and (ii) ideas for future improvement (forward-looking – analysed in the
impact assessment). Analysis of the two targeted surveys was straightforward, as these
mapped well onto specific user subgroups listed above, namely EU-level institutional
users (targeted at the network of statistical correspondents of all Commission services)
and statistics producers (targeted at the NSIs). To analyse the results of the OPC, all
replies were first categorised into the key stakeholder groups listed above and then
assessed in turn. The workshops were used to obtain stakeholder feedback at the start and
at the end of the evaluation (addressing the problem definition – September 2021, and the
problem validation – January 2022).
4.2. Limitations and robustness of findings
A broad structural limitation of the desk research was the fact that the basic legal acts
under this intervention were adopted between 2007 and 2013 – at a time when the Better
Regulation guidelines and ensuing need for effective monitoring and evaluation
mechanisms were not in place yet. Moreover, the costs of producing statistics at Member
State level were not documented in sufficient detail at that time. In particular, virtually all
national production systems for population statistics were historically set up, maintained
and updated to simultaneously cater to both national and EU-level statistical needs. This
makes it extremely difficult for Member States to separate: (i) the baseline costs of
catering to national needs; from (ii) the incremental costs incurred only to comply with
the legal framework under this intervention (and costs of catering to EU-level statistical
needs more generally).
Finally, the period when the legal framework was implemented in the Member States –
roughly from 2007 to 2014 – coincided with another fundamental trend, namely the first
Table 2 - Mapping of stakeholder groups onto consultation activities
Activity
Public
consultation
Targeted
survey
Targeted
workshops
Expert
consultations
Interviews
Period
Stakeholder
group
Q4 2021 Q4 2021 Q2-Q4 2021 Q3-Q4 2021
Administrative
data providers
X X
Individual
respondents
X
Statistics
producers
X X X X X
Institutional users X X X X
Media X X X
Other
professional users
X X X
General public X
19
stages of the transition of many national statistical production systems from traditional
data sources to an increased – or even exclusive – use of administrative data sources.
This broad trend is assumed to have substantially affected costs across this period. This
cost effect is likely to have been much greater than any changes in costs due to the
intervention – at least in some Member States.
These limitations have made it difficult to quantify implementation costs cleanly against
the hypothetical baseline (i.e. the 2005 situation augmented by the effects of Regulation
(EC) No 223/2009), and thus to assess efficiency quantitatively. Therefore, related
evaluation questions and indicators were designed to acknowledge this difficulty by
adding additional qualitative opinion elements covered by the stakeholder consultation.
Nevertheless, monetised baseline and incremental costs on Member States and on
Eurostat itself by each statistical domain, are estimated from the consultation results at
hand, combined with both regular Eurostat consultations on statistical production costs
and UNECE publications on the costs of previous census rounds26
. The estimation
models and assumptions are described in detail in Annex 2, and findings are presented
under the discussion of efficiency in Section 5.4 below.
It was not possible to quantify or estimate the monetary value of: (i) costs for data users
or for individual persons; and (ii) benefits in general. This was in part due to a lack of
available data, for example on the costs to citizens of participating in census rounds.
More generally, this was due to certain costs and benefits being inappropriate for
quantification because their effects are more ambiguous and variable across Member
States and stakeholder groups. For example, the benefits to non-institutional data users
from increased access to high quality European statistics on population would be
challenging to quantify, since this would depend on several additional factors, such as
how these data would be used or the cost of accessing data through alternative sources.
5. ANALYSIS AND ANSWERS TO THE EVALUATION QUESTIONS
This evaluation addresses all five standard criteria (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency,
coherence, and EU added value) as well as statistical quality as an auxiliary criterion.
Statistical quality affects the standard criteria in various ways, so that indicators
contributing to the standard criteria often draw from statistical quality indicators as part
of the evidence. In general, each evaluation question was assessed with at least one
indicator, where indicators are either qualitative or quantitative depending on the source
data available and the nature of the indicator. An overview of the complete evaluation
framework in terms of criteria – questions – indicators is provided in Annex 4.
5.1. Relevance – initial situation (RI)
The need for this intervention was based on statistical requirements and constraints that
existed in the baseline scenario of around 2005. However, the reference scenario has
changed significantly between the baseline and today. Therefore, an evaluation of the
relevance of the intervention should take at least two perspectives: performance against
the baseline scenario (‘initial relevance’) and performance against current needs and
26
https://unece.org/measuring-population-and-housing; https://unece.org/measuring-population-and-
housing-practices-unece-countries-2000-round-censuses
20
constraints (‘evolved relevance’). This section evaluates only initial relevance, whereas
evolved relevance under the reference scenario of today is evaluated in section 5.2.
RI1 – To what extent do statistical objectives and outputs correspond to the needs for
evidence-based EU policymaking?
 All EU institutional- and policy-related topical needs known at the baseline were
addressed.
When the intervention began around 2005, several EU-level data needs in the population-
statistics domain were well known and expressed by various EU bodies (footnote 1).
These needs are documented in the explanatory memoranda of the Commission proposals
for – as well as in the recitals of – the current legislation. As Figure 1 shows, the EU-
level needs can be broadly split into policy needs (supporting EU policies) and
institutional needs (emerging directly from provisions in the Treaties explicitly relevant
to population statistics). Indicator RI1.1 measures if/when initial EU use cases (policy
and institutional) were addressed successively by datasets that became regulated through
this intervention. Figure 3 shows the time evolution of the indicator, clearly highlighting
the step-by-step improvements around the years when particular base acts started to
deliver data (2009 for the Migration Regulation, 2014 for the Census and Demography
Regulations). The key quality gaps at the time (2005) that were addressed by this
intervention were comparability, timeliness and completeness of the data across all
Member States (see Section 5.8).
RI2 – To what extent do statistical objectives and outputs serve institutional needs for the
functioning of the EU?
 Addressing EU institutional needs for the definition and implementation of the
population base leaves room for improvement. Gaps exist in statistics inputs for
population projections.
There are three main institutional needs introduced in Section 2 for European population
statistics: (i) monitoring of the demographic situation; (ii) national population weights for
qualified majorities in the Council; and (iii) inputs to population projections needed for
long-term economic planning. These needs imply certain aspects of the statistics: for
instance, policy and democratic-representation considerations require a population-base
definition (who is counted among the population and who is not) that reflects the actual
population present. Indicator RI2.1 shows that the compromises accepted under this
intervention have generally led to a regulated definition of the population base that is
Figure 1 – Evolution of the share of initial EU use cases addressed by European datasets (indicator RI1.1) over the
period of implementing the intervention. (Source: Eurostat analysis)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
21
overall barely sufficient in this respect. The Demography Regulation requires national
population figures based on a strict base definition only for Council voting weights.
These national population figures must be of the highest possible quality27
but the factual
accuracy or comparability achieved is currently not quantified, and there are indications
that the strict definition is not implemented coherently in all cases (RI2.2, see EE3.1).
Finally, there are gaps in statistics inputs for producing population projections that were
in principle known at the time of developing the intervention, but not fully reflected in
the resulting legal framework (RI2.3).
5.2. Relevance – evolution until today (RE)
RE1 – To what extent do population statistics address current policy needs for detailed,
frequent and harmonised data on population aspects, including at highest geographic
granularity?
 The evolution of EU policy needs since the baseline has led to significant new data
gaps.
The previous section showed that the intervention has indeed led to many highly relevant
and needed datasets from a baseline perspective. However, indicators RE1.1–RE1.5
measure the gaps due to emerging policy needs that currently exist but that were not
anticipated at the baseline.
Indicator Gap type Baseline Target Current Key gap(s)
RE1.1 Detail Good Good Barely
sufficient
- Housing data for Green Deal
- Equality data for
fundamental rights policies
RE1.2 Frequency Good Good Decent - Housing data for Green Deal
- Quarterly (seasonal)
population for urban/rural
integration
RE1.3 Timeliness Good Good Decent Legal deadline for EU census
results of 27 months after the
census year is too late
RE1.4 Harmonisation Decent Good Barely
sufficient
No harmonisation of the
population-base definition at EU
level
RE1.5 Geographic
granularity
Good Good Barely
sufficient
NUTS-level data, incl. on
migration, functional typologies
and georeferenced data for
regional and urban/rural
cohesion policies, and cross-
border analysis
27
A qualified majority in accordance with Article 16(4) TEU requires at least 15 Council votes
representing at least 65% of the EU’s population, where some (rare) combinations of Member States
can lead to results that are extremely close to the population threshold. For instance, AT, BE, BG, CY,
DE, ES, HR, HU, IE, IT, LT, LU, LV, PL and PT (15 MS) would represent 65.000032% of the Union
population based on 2021 data.
22
In summary, the evolution of the policy environment over time has led to significant gaps
that did not exist at the time of the baseline, most notably in the detail of characteristics,
harmonisation, and the geographic granularity of the statistics.
RE2 – To what extent are established statistical objectives fit to respond to evolving
policy needs?
 RE1 identified a significant increase in gaps over time. Statistics users across all
groups do not find that the statistics adapt quickly to new needs.
The previous question identified several key gaps that emerged after the intervention was
implemented. According to indicator RE2.1, the current legal framework is now barely
sufficient to address these gaps, essentially because it provides almost no flexibility
mechanisms (e.g. only very few details can be changed by delegated powers). This is
substantiated by the OPC results, where most respondents across all stakeholder groups
except statistics producers agreed only ‘somewhat’ that the legislation is fit for purpose.
The inability of the legal framework to adapt is also illustrated in the clear opinion of
statistics users that the statistics cannot adapt quickly to new needs. Only a minority of
OPC respondents across all stakeholder groups (except statistics producers) agreed that
the statistics adapt quickly to new needs. The share of disagreement was most
pronounced among the professional and institutional users. Moreover, opinions on the ad
hoc data collections initiated outside the legal framework in response to COVID-19 seem
to indicate that such voluntary ad hoc measures may not be sufficient to meet the needs
experienced in a rapidly changing crisis.
Finally, after the 2011 census, Eurostat and the NSIs concluded there was a substantial
need for a complete collection of key 2021 census data on a common European 1 km2
grid. However, this could not be regulated under the Census Regulation due to its lack of
Figure 2 – Opinions of OPC respondents on which dataset topics they consider a priority to be improved by 2030.
(Source: ICF analysis of OPC responses)
23
flexibility. Therefore, the Commission had to proceed with an ad hoc act under a
different legal base to ensure EU completeness and comparability28
.
RE3 – Who are the main current users of European statistics on population and to what
extent do the currently available European statistics on population meet their needs?
 A variety of user groups other than EU institutional users is identified. These groups
are generally somewhat more satisfied with the current statistics, but raise the same
main topics for improvement as RE1.
RE1 focused on the needs of EU-level institutional users representing the most influential
user group of European statistics. However, in addition to institutional users at other
governance levels, the stakeholder consultation also addressed other relevant user groups
in line with the expectations of the consultation strategy. These other relevant user
groups most notably include NGOs active in the relevant policy areas and
academic/research institutions. The views of these user groups are captured by the OPC,
workshops and interviews.
The consultations of these more diverse groups found that they are generally somewhat
more satisfied that their data needs are being met than EU-level institutional users.
However, these more diverse groups have also identified areas for improvement that are
in line with the findings of RE1, namely: (i) the timeliness of statistics; (ii) the
availability of data on subgroups at risk of inequality and non-discrimination (such as
LGBTI groups and ethnic minorities); (iii) the availability of data on EU internal and
external migration; and (iv) access issues (such as the utility of metadata and other user-
friendliness concerns). This is also reflected in Figure 4, which shows OPC priorities for
dataset topics to be improved by 2030. Thus, changes in the needs of statistics users often
reflect major societal changes such as migration, gender issues and social norms29
.
5.3. Effectiveness (EE)
EE1 – To what extent is the output of high quality?
 Several quality aspects have improved significantly, especially for statistics that were
included in the three new Regulations. Key gaps remain in: (i) availability of statistics
when data transmission is voluntary; and (ii) comparability of statistics due to
insufficient harmonisation.
At the time of the baseline around 2005, all relevant statistics were produced on a
voluntary basis. This led to significant gaps in the statistical-quality dimensions of
comparability, timeliness and completeness at EU level – i.e. data were not available for
all Member States, or were only available after considerable delay. It also meant that
some statistical categories were not fully comparable. Therefore, improvement on these
quality aspects is a criterion for measuring the effectiveness of the intervention. Findings
from indicators on respective quality dimensions are summarised in the table below.
28
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1799 of 21 November 2018 on the establishment of
a temporary direct statistical action for the dissemination of selected topics of the 2021 population and
housing census geocoded to a 1 km2
grid (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 296, 22.11.2018, p. 19).
29
ICF Final Report supporting ESOP evaluation (2022), Section 4.1.
24
Quality dim. Ind. Definition Baseline Target Current
Coherence SQ1.3 Percentage of ESS members with
coherent annual population totals
across datasets
72%
(2005)
100% 100%
(from
2014 on)
Coherence SQ1.5 Percentage of ESS members with
coherence between annual
population stocks and demographic
changes
44%
(2004-
2012 av.)
100% 43%
(2013-
2019 av.)
Comparability SQ2.2 Percentage of consistent bilateral
migration flows between ESS
members (<20% difference)
25%
(2005)
100% 25%
(2019)
Comparability SQ2.3 Relative asymmetry of total intra-EU
migration (% of total immigration)
13.8%
(2008)
0% 3.7%
(2019)
Timeliness SQ4.1 Largest delay of EU complete annual
population data compared to
reference date
552 days
(2007-
2012)
≤ 552
days
397 days
(2013-
2019)
Punctuality SQ5.1 Largest delay compared to agreed
deadline among ESS members
294 days
(2007-
2012)
0 days 31 days
(2013-
2019)
Completeness SQ6.1 Percentage of mandatory statistics
published with EU-level
completeness
42.6%
(2000-
2006 av.)
100% 98.9%
(2013-
2019 av.)
Completeness SQ6.2 Percentage of voluntary statistics
published with EU-level
completeness
41.2%
(2000-
2006 av.)
100% 58.4%
(2013-
2019 av.)
This shows that coherence (SQ1.3), comparability (SQ2.3), timeliness (SQ4.1)30
, and
completeness (SQ6.1) have all improved significantly for data that became mandatory
with the intervention. However, the quality aspects of voluntary data have not improved
at the same rate (SQ2.2, SQ6.2), which was to be expected given the baseline experience.
This is very much in line with the general opinion of respondents to the public
consultation, who largely agreed (more than 75% agreed in each stakeholder group) that
the current statistics are of high quality overall. There was also widespread agreement
that the voluntary parts should be subject to a regulation in the future (more than 75% in
each stakeholder group agreed except for the statistics producers). Finally, the lack of
improvement on indicator SQ1.5 – despite underlying mandatory data – is a direct
consequence of the harmonisation gap identified in question RI2 that persists even after
the intervention.
EE2 – To what extent do statistics published under the intervention serve EU
policymaking?
30
Note an intricacy: the delay in receiving complete EU data compared to the reference date (timeliness,
SQ4.1) did not improve at the same rate as the compliance with agreed deadlines (punctuality, SQ5.1).
This is because Member States only agreed to commit to a longer formal deadline (12 months instead
of 8.5 months) when the deadline was included in the Demography Regulation. This highlights typical
trade-offs between quality dimensions (here completeness vs timeliness) that become explicit when the
statistics are made subject to a regulation.
25
 The availability of EU aggregates and complete coverage of the EU population and
its demographic characteristics have generally improved, leading to improved evidence
for EU policymaking.
A key element of data utility for policy-making at EU level – and thus effectiveness of
this intervention – is the availability of EU aggregates. To make EU aggregates available,
the data need to be complete across all Member States and a dedicated aggregate
category must be created in the geographic breakdowns – e.g. ‘EU28 (2013-2020)’. The
left-hand side of Figure 5 shows the average completeness of EU aggregates in annual31
datasets, illustrating two trends. First, the Migration Regulation introduced various
mandatory or partly mandatory datasets from 2009, but without including clear
approaches to aggregate migration data coming from NSIs to EU level. Second, the
Demography Regulation introduced mandatory datasets and required EU aggregates to
be calculated (a significant improvement can be seen from 2013).
Another key element for policymaking at all levels is the comprehensive coverage of the
population under the required characteristics. The presence of ‘unknown’ categories
reduces this comprehensive coverage for the affected variables. The right-hand side of
Figure 5 shows the average percentage of the population with an ‘unknown’
characteristic across all affected variables and Member States in the annual data. Again,
there is a clear performance difference between the mandatory and voluntary datasets. In
particular, legislation to implement the Demography Regulation32
capped the population
percentage reported as ‘unknown’ to at most 5% of the total population in the mandatory
data. The sharp increase in the voluntary data around 2009 comes from the introduction
of a variable on education that was initially reported as ‘unknown’ to a significant extent.
EE3 – To what extent do statistics published under the intervention serve institutional
needs for the functioning of the EU?
31
The 2011 census datasets are not included here explicitly because no EU aggregates were calculated, so
the indicator is trivially 0.
32
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 205/2014 of 4 March 2014 laying down uniformed
conditions for the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 of the European Parliament and
the Council on European demographic statistics, as regards breakdowns of data, deadlines and data
revisions (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 65, 5.3.2014, p. 10).
Figure 3 – Left: average completeness of EU aggregates in annual datasets, by collection base and reference year
(EE2.1). Right: average share of population categorised as ‘unknown’, over all variables where this category exists
and over all Member States (EE2.2 mandatory, EE2.3 voluntary datasets). (Source: Eurostat analysis of Eurobase
datasets)
0
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8
1
Mandatory Partly mandatory
Voluntary Indicators
0,0%
0,5%
1,0%
1,5%
2,0%
2,5%
3,0%
EE2.2 - mandatory datasets
EE2.3 - voluntary datasets
26
 There are indications that population figures for Council voting weights can be made
more coherent for all Member States. Although core topics for demographic monitoring
are covered well, data gaps have opened up on emerging topics of demographic and
societal change.
As discussed under question RI2 (Section 5.1), the quality – and in particular the
accuracy – of total population figures corresponding to a strict common definition of the
population base (usual residence based on 12 months stay) is central to the effectiveness
of these data to establish reliable Council voting weights. Indicator RI2.2 already
established that there is insufficient information available on accuracy. Therefore EE3.1
analyses the coherence in implementation of the strict definition across Member States
and thus the emerging comparability of these figures at EU level. The information
available on national situations indicates that 22 Member States applied the definition
coherently in 2022, up from 17 Member States when this data collection started in 2014.
Some progress has therefore been made and this has led to decent EU-level comparability
of these figures at present, even though a major gap remains due to a lack of information
on accuracy.
The appropriateness of the statistics for monitoring the demographic situation is another
factor in the effectiveness of statistics for institutional purposes. A ‘soft’ indication of its
performance in this respect can be seen in the opinions gathered in the OPC on whether
various elements of demographic and societal change are sufficiently covered by the
current statistics (EE3.2). Figure 6 shows several topics where only a minority of the
respondents from the institutional user group found the currently published statistics to
be sufficient. These topics are equality (only 31% of respondents found the statistics
sufficient), housing (33%), urban/rural mobility (33%), intra-EU migration (38%) and
rural population (47%). These responses are in line with the targeted consultation with
Commission statistical correspondents, who said that the key policy topics suffering from
insufficient data were: the Green Deal (housing data), urban/rural integration (functional
typologies and seasonal data) and fundamental rights policies (equality data). Among all
other professional users – including researchers – the picture is even more distinct, with
even smaller shares than institutional users saying there was sufficient data on equality
Figure 4 – Institutional users’ views according to the OPC on sufficiency of current data by societal change topic.
(Source: Eurostat analysis of OPC responses)
8
7
10
5
5
2
2
0
3
3
1
1
7
7
8
7
4
2
4
6
6
4
3
3
1
3
1
3
5
4
5
5
6
5
4
1
3
0
0
0
1
3
3
1
0
3
1
4
0
0
0
0
0
1
2
0
0
0
3
4
0% 50% 100%
Population size and structure
Life expectancy
Population age
Fertility rates
Household size
Housing and homelessness
EU mobility
Acquisitions and losses of citizenship
Population of urban areas
Population of rural areas
Regional and urban/rural mobility
Groups at risk of inequality or discrimination
Very sufficient
Somewhat sufficient
Neutral
Somewhat insufficient
Very insufficient
27
(14%), housing (21%), urban/rural mobility (28%), intra-EU migration (37%) and rural
population (42%). The other professional users were also mostly dissatisfied with the
data on acquisitions or losses of citizenship (only 30% were satisfied) and urban
population (41%).
EE4 – What are the existing cooperation arrangements between NSIs and national
authorities in charge of administrative data sources that are used for population
statistics? How effective are those arrangements?
 Cooperation arrangements between NSIs and national authorities are largely
effective, although stakeholders identified clear room for further improvement.
The targeted NSI survey asked about the existence of legislative or other formal
arrangements for cooperation between the NSI and the national authorities in charge of
relevant administrative sources. In their responses, NSIs pointed to written agreements
with the data owners (79% of NSIs said they had such agreements in place for all or most
relevant sources), followed by effective coordination mechanisms in place (59%). Over a
third of participating NSIs indicated that they are informed in advance of changes to
administrative data sources for all or for the most relevant sources (34%), and 28% said
they were consulted on designs or changes to administrative data sources. These results
tend to match the results from the case-study interviews, indicating that NSIs have a
series of coordination mechanisms that can be activated for different types of sources.
Nonetheless, the workshops showed a continuous discussion on the difficulties that NSIs
face in accessing data.
In the NSI survey, NSIs were also asked how often they faced difficulties in cooperating
with data owners. Most NSIs (66%) said they rarely face difficulties. Less than a quarter
said they faced issues always or sometimes (24%), while 10% said they never face
issues. When asked about main limitations/restrictions in the cooperation agreements, the
main issues raised by the NSIs were excessive formality or bureaucracy. The NSIs also
said that delays in sending data were generally a rare occurrence, and outright refusal to
send data was either rare or did not happen. Nevertheless, most NSIs (68%) agreed that
there was room to improve cooperation between NSIs and national authorities, while
21% disagreed.
Findings from the case studies indicate that, overall, the current agreements seem to be
sufficient to gather the required data, but not sufficient for gathering data on areas of
emerging interest. Although the situation may vary between countries, these results seem
to follow a general trend, namely that serious problems with data access only seem to
affect specific sectors.
5.4. Efficiency (EI)
EI1 – To what extent is the output compliant with legal requirements?
 Only occasional issues were followed up on and no infringement cases were
launched. The current legal base consisting of three separate acts leads to administrative
inefficiencies (REFIT relevance).
Since the adoption of the three base acts, Eurostat has monitored the legal compliance of
Member States with mandatory statistical requirements as a part of its implementation
efforts, but being somewhat less strict during the transitional periods after new
obligations entered into force. Overall, Eurostat only identified occasional issues in
compliance over the years, and these issues were followed up at expert level to improve
28
compliance gradually. Eurostat monitored and addressed compliance, and did not have to
launch any infringement procedures in the process (EI1.1).
Another issue relevant to efficiency is the fact that the current legal framework consists
of three separate legal acts that Member States need to be comply with and that Eurostat
needs to enforce and monitor. Apart from trailing internal incoherence (Section 5.5), this
is assumed to cause at least some redundant administrative procedures, creating
opportunities for REFIT simplifications.
EI2 – To what extent are voluntary data collections required to cover statistical needs?
 The intervention was efficient in regulating a large part of the statistics addressing
key needs. Nevertheless, there is room for further efficiency gains due to the existence of
many currently voluntary datasets that are highly complete (REFIT relevance).
Voluntary data collections are generally less efficient at EU level, because not all
Member States invest the same resources in providing these data. This means that most
of the EU-level value added is lost because these data are then not complete, timely
and/or comparable enough. Often, a relatively small incremental investment in
completing the data, i.e. by regulating them and supporting implementation financially,
can lead to significant increase in value added. Therefore the share of data needs covered
by voluntary collections (EI2.1) is a proxy indicator for the efficiency of the intervention.
Figure 7 shows the evolution over time of the numbers of mandatory, partly mandatory,
and voluntary datasets published. Three changes are obvious from this figure. The first
change is the introduction of mostly partly-mandatory datasets by the Migration
Regulation from 2008 on. The second change is the conversion of voluntary datasets to
mandatory datasets, and the addition of new voluntary datasets in the wake of the
Demography Regulation from 2014 on. The third change is the sharp increase in
voluntary datasets from 2020 responding to urgent needs related to COVID-19. Thus in
2020, almost half of the annual and infra-annual datasets published in the ESOP domains
are voluntary, and only a third of all datasets are fully regulated by EU legislation. This
indicates room for efficiency gains, also in a REFIT context, especially by regulating
voluntary datasets that are already now highly complete.
EI3 – How often are mandatory vs voluntary datasets accessed by users?
Figure 5 – Number of annual and infra-annual datasets by release year (left) and for 2020 only (right), and split by
collection base (EI2.1). (Source: Eurostat analysis)
0
20
40
60
80
100
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Mandatory Partly mandatory Voluntary
33
32%
19
19%
50
49%
29
 In line with the general trend, the number of queries of population statistics has
roughly doubled over the past decade for most domains. Mandatory datasets are
significantly more popular than voluntary ones.
OPC respondents from almost all stakeholder groups use the Eurostat website or database
to consult statistics on the European population. The only group with a significant
minority (41%) that did not know about these resources were the individual respondents
to statistical survey questionnaires (i.e. non-regular users).
On access to annual data through Eurobase33
(EI3.1), Figure 8 (left-hand chart) shows
that the numbers accessing the most popular demographic dataset (demo_gind –
demographic balance) have increased significantly over the past decade (from less than
50 000 per year until 2014 to more than 100 000 per year since 2018). However, this
increase in interest is not unique to population statistics and therefore cannot be attributed
to an isolated effect of the intervention. For example, popular Eurostat datasets across
other domains (e.g. GDP, the consumer price index, and unemployment) have also seen
an increase in popularity, roughly doubling access numbers over the past decade. The
right-hand side of Figure 8 confirms that the partly or fully regulated datasets under this
intervention are also significantly more popular on average than the datasets that
remained voluntary.
On access to 2011 EU census output through the Census Hub34
(EI3.1), Eurostat did not
produce regular analytics. An ad hoc extraction was only possible from 2017 onwards, so
there are no data for the period most likely to have seen the most user interest, i.e. during
the period after initial publication in 2014. Nevertheless, the website analytics for 2017-
2021 show that 2011 EU census outputs are still just as popular as annual data, with more
than 160 000 queries per year for the most popular dataset (hypercube 55 – population by
NUTS 3 region, sex and single year of age). And on average, there are almost 8 000
33
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database
34
https://ec.europa.eu/CensusHub2
Figure 6 – The left-hand chart shows accesses per year to some of the most popular Eurostat datasets, namely on:
annual GDP (nama_gdp_fixed); consumer prices (prc_hicp_midx); monthly unemployment (une_rt_m); and the
demographic balance within ESOP scope (demo_gind). The right-hand chart shows average accesses to datasets per
year by legal base. (Source: Eurostat analysis of monthly Eurobase access analytics)
0
100
200
300
400
Thousands
Most popular datasets
nama_gdp fixed prc_hicp_midx
une_rt_m demo_gind (m)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Thousands
ESOP averages by legal base
mandatory partly mandatory
voluntary
30
queries per year and per hypercube on population (more than 6 300 queries on housing,
2 100 on families and fewer than 1 000 on households). This also shows that census
outputs on housing are almost as popular as outputs on population.
EI4 – How efficient are existing cooperation arrangements between NSIs and national
authorities in charge of administrative data sources used for population statistics?
 Even though cooperation arrangements are widespread, NSIs attribute efficiency
losses mainly to the insufficient willingness of source owners to communicate and involve
NSIs in the design of – or changes to – these sources. Good and close coordination
seems a key factor.
EE4 revealed a problem: although there are already formal, effective cooperation
arrangements between NSIs and national authorities, the role of most NSIs is more
limited in decision-making or change processes related to the relevant administrative
sources. For instance, 66% of respondents to the targeted NSI survey noted that they
were informed in advance of changes to administrative sources only for some or none of
the relevant sources. And 72% of respondents to the targeted NSI survey said they were
consulted on the design of – or changes to – only some or none of the relevant sources.
Therefore, despite formalised – and to some extent efficient – cooperation mechanisms,
some NSIs experience insufficient communication or involvement in key decisions made
by national authorities. This may lead to inefficiencies, as substantiated by feedback from
interviews, where views on cooperation arrangements varied greatly across Member
States.
Some of the key challenges and drivers of inefficiencies in these cooperation
arrangements are set out in the bullet points below35
.
 The NSI is rarely involved in making decisions on data structure and quality-
related issues, including when designing or modifying administrative databases.
 There is often a lack of established cooperation mechanisms between NSIs and
data owners.
 Data owners are often not willing to consider recommendations or requests from
NSIs, and NSIs often lack the authority to request changes.
 Excessive bureaucracy and delays often occur in the delivery of data, particularly
sensitive or protected data.
 In some cases, NSIs reported that data owners misinterpreted national law and
refused to provide access to data and/or requested payments from NSIs for the
data.
 NSIs that reported strong collaboration arrangements attributed this to the
existence of established coordination mechanisms, including written agreements
covering each instance of data provision with data owners.
When asked to identify areas of cooperation that required improvement to achieve cost
savings in the production of population statistics, NSIs identified the following key areas:
(i) the quality of data; (ii) staff availability; and (iii) communication between NSIs and
national authorities. A substantial proportion of NSIs (48%) were unable to provide a
response when asked for suggested improvements to cooperative arrangements to ensure
European statistics on population are able to meet user needs. Those NSIs that did
35
Eurostat (2018) Analysis of the legal and institutional environment in the EU Member States and EFTA
Countries, admin-wp1.1_analysis_legal_institutional_environment_final.pdf (europa.eu).
31
respond gave suggestions relating mainly to data access, data sharing, and the frequency
of data sharing.
EI5 – What costs do data producers currently face when developing European statistics
on population?
 The costs of the intervention are mainly borne by Member States’ administrations and
Eurostat. Due to implementation of the intervention, the recurring baseline costs for
statistical production have increased by roughly 20% for Member States and by roughly
a factor of 5 for Eurostat, with the census accounting for the biggest share, although this
depends greatly on the census method adopted by the Member State (register-based,
traditional or combined).
The analysis by the contractor36
suggests that, overall, the main costs associated with the
development of European statistics on population have been borne by: (i) NSIs/Member
States; (ii) Eurostat; and (iii) to some extent the general population. However, it was not
possible to quantify these costs and therefore they are not discussed in detail in this
analysis. The greatest costs were incurred by Member States and their NSIs. The types of
costs included in the cost analysis conducted as part of this study are detailed in Annex 2.
These are set out in the two bullet points below.
 Costs to Eurostat: regulatory costs (for preparing/communicating the legislation
and providing financial support), enforcement costs (or costs relating to
monitoring compliance with the legislation and publishing data) and IT costs.
 Costs to NSIs or Member States: compliance costs (relating to monitoring and
ensuring compliance with the legislation), administrative costs (to design and
implement procedures to collect/distribute data, as well as to train staff),
enforcement costs (covering costs required to monitor and report on data provided
e.g. in terms of data quality etc.) and IT costs.
As set out in Table 3, the analysis of costs developed as part of this evaluation generated
an indicative estimate of the incremental costs to NSIs/Member States and to Eurostat
36
ICF Final Report supporting ESOP evaluation (2022), Section 4.2.2.
Table 3 – Overview of costs to MS/NSIs and Eurostat associated with the current legal framework, of which
incremental costs broken down by legal base. (Source: ICF estimates of baseline and incremental costs to
NSIs/Member States and Eurostat)
Overview of costs identified in the evaluation (harmonised 2021 prices in million EUR )
NSI/Member State Administrations Eurostat
One-off Recurring (average
annual)
One-off Recurring (average
annual)
Baseline - 270.2 - 0.2
Additional costs of the current
framework – of which
4.0 57.9 1.2 1.1
 Census - 45.5 0.08 0.71
 Demography 3.88 8.6 0.10 0.17
 Migration 0.15 3.8 1.00 0.22
32
associated with the current regulatory framework. This indicative estimate is relative to
the baseline scenario before the implementation of the Census, Migration and
Demography Regulations. Table 3 sets out the sum of costs associated with all three
Regulations. Overall, additional costs to all Member States and their NSIs are estimated
to be around EUR 58 million on average every year (an average of 2.2 million per
Member State), with an additional EUR 4 million in one-off set-up costs. This suggests
that costs to Member States increased relatively little (by around 20%), adding to the
existing baseline cost of EUR 270 million. For Eurostat, incremental costs are estimated
at EUR 1.1 million on average every year, with a EUR 1.2 million additional one-off
cost. These estimates suggest that, relative to the baseline, costs to Eurostat more than
quadrupled, in line with its increased legislative responsibilities.
Table 3 also shows a breakdown of the incremental costs associated with each individual
piece of legislation, relative to the baseline. This shows that delivery of annual
demography statistics are more costly to NSIs/Member States than delivery of migration
statistics. However, costs related to census statistics are considerably higher for both
NSIs and Eurostat than those related to the production of annual demography or
migration statistics. As shown in Figure 9, the overall and per capita costs vary greatly
depending on the census method. For example, the costs associated with a register-based
method – becoming more and more common across Member States – are much lower
than for a traditional or combined census method. This is substantiated by findings from
the NSI survey, where 12 out of 31 respondents suggested that the use of administrative
sources would help improve the cost and organisational efficiency with which statistics
are produced.
Generally, the key cost drivers for producing European statistics on population under the
current legislative framework include the cost of staff, IT equipment and assuring data
quality. Feedback from the NSI survey suggests that the main drivers of costs are staff
and IT: 16 out of 30 respondents to the survey said these were the key cost drivers. Other
drivers suggested by respondents included the quality of data, changing variables, and
data collection.
EI6 – What benefits do data users currently get from European statistics on population
(i.e. baseline benefits)?
 The existing legal framework improved key gaps from the 2000s. This led to various
benefits that were identified and valued by all stakeholder groups, most notably
improved comparability across Member States and better evidence for decision-making.
Figure 7 – Total and total per capita costs of delivering the 2001 and 2011 census, by census or method. (Source:
ICF analysis of UNECE data)
33
This evaluation has shown that the existing legal framework succeeded in improving key
policy gaps from the 2000s by improving data availability (RI1) and quality (SQ1-6).
This helped to add significant value at EU level (EU1-5). According to the analysis by
the contractor37
, this generated the key benefits set out in the bullet points below (see full
list in Annex 2).
 Benefits to the general public: improved access to data and evidence, more
accurate media reporting, increased awareness of population data, and greater
engagement with the data-gathering process. In the longer term, the improved
statistics will bring benefits associated with improved policymaking at the EU
and Member-State level.
 Benefits to NSIs/Member States: increased access to higher quality and more
timely data. Staff are more skilled in – and have greater ownership over – the
data-collection process. NSIs and Member States are better able to collaborate
with data owners and meet user needs. In the longer term, the improved statistics
will bring economic and social benefits related to better understanding of
population data and associated improvements in policymaking.
 Benefits to Eurostat: reductions in administrative burden associated with the
coordination and interpretation of data provided voluntarily. Eurostat also
benefits from an improved reputation and is better able to meet user needs and
evolving policy needs.
 Benefits to the EU more widely: increased access to high-quality, timely,
reliable and detailed statistics to feed into decision-making. This includes being
better able to make informed policy decisions which in turn improves the EU’s
reputation.
 Benefits to non-institutional data users: increased access to high-quality,
comparable, reliable, timely and detailed statistics. This leads to non-institutional
data users being better able to produce detailed research and comparative analyses
across Member States.
Given the nature of the types of benefits identified, it was not possible or appropriate to
quantify these. However, according to feedback from the interviews conducted, NSI
survey, OPC and documents reviewed, overall the main benefits are centred around the
legislative framework’s ability to enable access to high quality data to support the
development of evidence-based policy while reducing or minimising costs for data users.
Figure 10 makes this point more clearly. It shows the views of OPC respondents on the
various benefits brought by the intervention, with many respondents agreeing that the
intervention helped comparability across Member States (77% agreed), better decision-
making (68%) and enhanced quality of products and services (66%). These findings were
corroborated by feedback from the NSI survey, where 20 out of the 33 respondents saw
the availability and comparability of European data as the main benefit of the
intervention. A further 7 respondents said that the main benefit of the intervention was
that the needs of data users were now being met. Stakeholders who were interviewed also
said they valued Eurostat’s role in providing guidance, press releases and news based on
European data; checking and validating data; and providing assurances around the
comparability and reliability of data.
37
ICF Final Report supporting ESOP evaluation (2022), Section 4.2.3.
34
5.5. Coherence – internal (CI)
CI1 – To what extent do the legal bases cover statistical objectives through mandatory
data collections?
 The intervention initially managed to regulate many datasets serving policy needs,
thus reducing users’ dependence on voluntary datasets. However, dependence on
voluntary datasets increased once more due to the need for specific data addressing the
COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 onwards.
An EU framework that is designed from the outset to put current and evolving data needs
on a regulatory base – at least to a proportionate extent and in the medium or long term –
can be considered more internally coherent than one that does not achieve this. From that
perspective, the Census Regulation was internally coherent by enabling delegated
mechanisms to regulate the entire content (within the scope defined in the base act)
before each census round. Similarly, the Demography Regulation managed to reduce the
number of voluntary datasets by 35% from 2014 on (CI1.1), although it remained
necessary to collect voluntary input data (regional or other breakdowns) for regional
population projections and ad hoc policy requests. The renewed sharp increase in
voluntary datasets in 2020 (up by 39% from 2019 in response to the needs created by the
COVID-19 crisis) is not a problem in itself. Rather it is the lack of flexibility of the legal
framework to regulate some of these datasets in the medium or long term that reduces
internal coherence.
CI2 – Is the current legal framework internally coherent?
 The legal framework is generally internally coherent and the various legal acts
operate well together in achieving their objectives. Some internal inconsistencies remain
around the weak and non-harmonised provisions on population-base definitions across
legal acts.
Figure 8 – OPC respondents’ level of agreement to benefits generated by the intervention. (Source: ICF analysis of
responses provided to the OPC)
35
According to the contractor’s analysis38
, the legal framework governing European
population statistics is generally internally coherent overall. The various legal
instruments covering population data collections also operate well together in achieving
their general and specific objectives. However, certain issues have been identified with
insufficiently consistent statistics, such as in the area of migration statistics or other
statistics on population collected by Member States based on different definitions. These
issues could be caused by inconsistencies in the existing legal framework. Eurostat
currently undertakes several separate collections of population data with different
periodicities and under different legal bases. Given that these statistics are currently
based on several legal acts that were not designed jointly, definitions and disaggregations
of data were not developed together. This has resulted in sub-optimal internal coherence.
The analysis of the legal framework shows that there are no major legislative gaps, but
rather a series of inconsistencies that could be improved under a further harmonised EU
legal framework governing population statistics. Such inconsistencies mainly stem from
legal provisions that are not internally fully coherent. These legal provisions grant
Member States certain flexibility in defining their population base for different datasets39
.
Figure 11 shows that, when keeping the flexibility to choose national population-base
definitions, Member States accept a trade-off between negative impacts at EU level and
the main positive impact of cutting production costs. Other significant reasons for
maintaining national definitions given by most NSI survey respondents include
constraints in available data sources (66% cited this as a reason), existing national legal
frameworks (58%), and historical context (55%).
One final inconsistency is that the current legal framework endorses a variety of data
sources (including administrative sources) to be used for statistical production. However,
38
ICF Final Report supporting ESOP evaluation (2022), Section 4.3.1.
39
For example, Article 2(b)-2(c) of the Migration Regulation requires international migration flows to be
based on a strict twelve-month rule for all Member States (in-domain harmonisation across countries).
However, Article 9(5) of the Demography Regulation requires population stock data by demographic
and migrant characteristics to be based on the same national population-base definition of the reporting
country (in-country harmonisation across domains). This leads to persistent inconsistencies in the
demographic balances of several Member States (see SQ1, Section 5.8).
Figure 9 – NSI survey respondents’ views on the impact of maintaining different national population-base definitions.
(Source: ICF analysis of NSI survey results)
36
the current legal framework lacks strong sectoral provisions to enable producers of
official population statistics (mainly NSIs) to process relevant sources for statistical
purposes. As a result, the reuse of administrative data is not fully embraced or
operationalised for all relevant sources available across various Member States.
Nevertheless, question EI4 (section 5.4) has established that gaps in practical cooperation
with data owners are typically more relevant than a lack of enabling legal provisions.
Moreover, according to an earlier Eurostat study (footnote 35), data-protection
restrictions stipulated in legal acts governing specific data sources are another main
factor that lead to conflicts with NSIs’ legal right to access these sources. This means that
additional legal acts must often be passed to allow NSIs to access these specific data
sources.
5.6. Coherence – external (CE)
CE1 – To what extent are population statistics coherent with related or depending other
European statistics?
 The coherence of population statistics with related or depending other European
statistics is satisfactory. The intervention led to improved coherence with managed-
migration and national accounts data.
An important element in the intervention’s external coherence is the level of statistical
coherence of the data it produces with related statistics produced outside the intervention.
Most relevant information overlaps in this respect are in the domains of: (i) asylum and
managed-migration statistics; (ii) social surveys based on samples; (iii) national accounts
statistics; and (iv) health statistics. Some findings from respective indicators are
summarised below.
 CE1.1 – Coherence of data on immigrants (flows and stocks) with data on
residence permits issued (from asylum and managed-migration statistics): despite
a general rough correlation between these data, large discrepancies (up to >100%)
and large variations between ESS members (smallest around 2%) are observed.
The most significant reasons for these discrepancies were identified, and several
NSIs are trying to quantify their difference components (accounting scheme,
work in progress).
 CE1.2 – Censuses used as a sampling frame for other social surveys: the use of
census results in this respect has decreased between the baseline and 2017 (post-
intervention). Nevertheless, the census remains important for this purpose in
about half of the ESS members. This reduced role of the census is likely a
consequence of the general transition towards register-based production systems
(two thirds of ESS members mainly use administrative sources for sampling
frames).
 CE1.3 – Census and annual demographic statistics used for national accounts:
census results continue to play a prominent role in the compilation of national
accounts, especially housing data. Demography statistics are not used in national
accounts – instead separate data are produced within the national accounts
domain40
that lead to the question of coherence (next point).
40
Total population (national concept) published in national accounts annually (nama_10_pe) and quarterly
(namq_10_pe); it could not be evaluated to what extent NSIs use population statistics as an input to
produce these datasets.
37
 CE1.4 – Coherence of annual population counts with respective national accounts
data: average total population during a reference year is an indicator in the ESOP
dataset demo_gind, but is also produced independently in the national accounts
dataset nama_10_pe. The average absolute deviation between these indicators
across Member States is stable at below 0.2% for the entire period since 2005.
The largest absolute values are consistently below 2% and there are no notable
trends or effects from this intervention. Therefore, the data are largely but not
fully coherent, which is to be expected due to methodological reasons.
 CE1.5 – coherence of statistics on annual deaths with health statistics on total
deaths: the discrepancies between these statistics over the years of their
availability (2011-2018) remain mostly around or below 1% for all Member
States and other reporting countries. There are conceptual differences in the data
collections and different data sources are used. There may also be different
definitions. Systematic biases over the whole time series are visible at national
levels. So far, Eurostat has not systematically analysed the specific national
drivers for these biases in each Member State.
CE2 – To what extent are EU concepts and definitions harmonised with international
practices or recommendations?
 The European Statistical System, coordinated by Eurostat, participates in
international efforts to harmonise concepts and definitions of population statistics. The
few notable gaps identified relate to the population-base definition.
Eurostat contributes to – and actively promotes – international statistical cooperation.
This creates an environment of common concepts and definitions that ultimately foster
international harmonisation of official statistics. A key element of this framework is the
set of recommendations on censuses of population and housing organised and updated
every 10 years by the UNECE and endorsed by the Conference of European Statisticians
(CES). These CES recommendations are applicable – and intended to be relevant – to the
needs of the 56 member countries of the UNECE. They are broadly comparable with the
global census principles and recommendations coordinated by the UN Statistical
Division. Moreover, as a key stakeholder of the European Statistical System (ESS),
Eurostat is ideally placed to provide support to non-EU countries and non-EU institutions
that are looking to approximate their official statistics to EU and international statistical
standards.
The current population definition in the EU census legislation is based on the usual-
residence concept with a residence rule that requires 12 months of residence. However,
this current population definition allows a default to national concepts based on legal or
registered residence without a time criterion (RI2.2), which is not formally in line with
international recommendations that rely on a strict usual-residence concept41
. In practice,
the national data supplied to the United Nations or the OECD generally use the same
population definitions as those data supplied to Eurostat. This means that there will be
coherence between the data for a particular country supplied to Eurostat, the United
Nations or the OECD. However, there will be international inconsistencies with the
population definition and its application by different countries.
CE3 – Is the current legal framework coherent with other EU policies and legislation,
including the Charter on Fundamental Rights?
41
E.g. 2020 CES Recommendations for the 2020 Censuses of Population and Housing §§392, 393.
38
 The legal framework is generally coherent with other EU policies and legislation,
including the Charter on Fundamental Rights. The gap in data on equality is not related
to incoherent legislation.
According to the contractor’s analysis42
, the legal framework governing European
population statistics is generally coherent with other EU policies and legislation,
including the Charter on Fundamental Rights. The contractor’s analysis also concluded
that the EU’s legal framework operates well together with other international legal
instruments that also cover population statistics. In the OPC, 52% of respondents agreed
with these conclusions, whereas only 15% disagreed (the remainder were neutral – 14%,
or uncertain – 19%).
No major legislative gaps were identified, but several stakeholders mentioned issues
related to the collection of data on equality43
. For instance, the European Committee of
Social Rights has identified a duty for national authorities to collect such data to inform
policies. And at EU level, these data are repeatedly called for to support EU policies44
.
However, during consultations with NSIs, some countries indicated that their national
legislation does not allow them to collect statistics on equality data, such as data on
ethnic groups and other types of data considered as sensitive. Nevertheless, Commission
studies45
concluded that no Member State currently imposes an absolute prohibition on
collecting data on ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Therefore, the data gap
seems less the result of possible conflict between legal instruments and more the result of
three things: (i) technical/statistical feasibility (especially with production systems
largely based on administrative sources); (ii) cultural preconditions; and (iii) priority in
certain Member States.
One important synergy is the synergy between the ESOP framework and the framework
for European statistics on persons and households based on samples (footnote 9). In
2017, Eurostat’s modernisation programme for social statistics suggested separate
framework regulations for social sample surveys and for population and census statistics.
However, the two frameworks are linked in many aspects. This is because the ESOP
framework provides the population frames for data collections from samples (see CE1.2)
as well as the necessary tools for benchmarking the data covered by samples.
5.7. EU added value (EU)
EU1 – To what extent is statistical quality achieved at EU level?
 The key elements of statistical quality adding value at EU level are completeness and
comparability across Member States. The intervention has improved both of these quality
dimensions significantly for the data that became regulated.
42
ICF Final Report supporting ESOP evaluation (2022), Section 4.3.2.
43
Defined as data providing breakdowns by characteristics identified as reasons for discrimination under
Article 10 TFEU: sex; racial or ethnic origin; religion or belief; disability; age; or sexual orientation.
44
Targeted consultation with Commission services.
45
DG JUST (2017) Analysis and comparative review of equality data collection practices in the
European Union – Data collection in the field of ethnicity; DG JUST (2017) Analysis and comparative
review of equality data collection practices in the European Union – Data collection in relation to
LGBTI people.
39
As noted earlier, the main value added at EU level for statistical quality is in
completeness and comparability. Improvements in these two areas can be measured
quantitatively based on the published data, but also qualitatively based on the opinions of
key stakeholder groups from the OPC.
On completeness (EU1.1), the quantitative analysis is based on indicators SQ6.1 and
SQ6.2 (Figure 16). This quantitative analysis illustrates how the common legal base
(including provisions on data contents and deadlines for sending the data) has improved
the EU-level completeness of regulated data from below 45% at the baseline (up to 2005)
to essentially 100% post-intervention. However, the quantitative analysis also shows that
voluntary data remain at a lower score of below 60% to this day. Most OPC respondents
from most stakeholder groups find that the statistics are sufficiently complete.
On comparability (EU1.2), the quantitative analysis is based on indicators SQ1.5 and
SQ2.1-SQ2.3. This analysis shows that regulation again improved the situation where it
was effective (SQ2.3), but that comparability gaps remain in voluntary data (SQ2.2) or
where the regulation was not effective in harmonising concepts (especially regarding the
population base – SQ1.5 and SQ2.1). Most OPC respondents across most of the
stakeholder groups said that the statistics were sufficiently harmonised/comparable at EU
level overall. However, most respondents across most stakeholder groups agreed only
‘somewhat’ that the legislation ensured comparability between Member States. There is
therefore a positive opinion overall that the legislation ensures comparability, but most
stakeholders are also aware of certain limitations.
EU2 – To what extent did the intervention achieve methodological soundness at EU level
(harmonisation of definitions and implementation, including the population base)?
 The legal framework does not establish a strict common population base. This has led
to a fragmented landscape of national definitions used by Member States. This in turn
had led to reduced comparability and a risk of double counting at EU level.
The legal definition of usual residence provided for in the three Regulations of the legal
framework provides for some flexibility: where the circumstances for usual residence
based on 12 months of actual presence cannot be established, the legal or registered
residence can be used instead46
. The problem with these defaulting options is that they are
not defined legally. In particular, there is no duration-of-residence criterion. This means
that the conceptualisation and implementation is largely subject to national legal,
administrative or policy contexts. This leads to a situation where there could be up to 27
factually different national definitions of the population base.
Under Article 8 of the Demography Regulation, Member States were required to carry
out feasibility studies on the use of the definition of ‘usual residence’ for population and
vital events. In 2016, Eurostat analysed these feasibility studies, and reported its findings
on the current implementation of the definition of population base across all Member
States under the current EU legal framework. The results showed that Member States
were indeed using different population-base definitions, including individual Member
States using different population-base definitions for statistics under different legal acts47
.
Figure 12 shows updated information from the targeted NSI survey illustrating the
fragmented landscape of population-base definitions that remains to this day.
46
Census Regulation Article 2(d), Demography Regulation Article 2(c), Migration Regulation Article 2(a).
47
COM(2018) 843.
40
Interestingly, the OPC results show that significant minorities or even majorities of
respondents across all stakeholder groups (more than 42% in each group except for
researchers and statistics producers) were not aware of this fragmented landscape.
However, a majority across all groups – including statistics producers – agrees (often
even ‘strongly’) that harmonisation is important.
In-depth interviews conducted by the contractor during the case studies highlighted that
NSIs consider their national definitions to be adapted to the national context. The
interviews also show that NSIs consider the benefits of the current use of national
definitions to centre around meeting current national requirements. Some NSIs asserted
that this can lead to issues with not having entirely comparable statistics at EU level.
These NSIs said this can be an issue for some data users that had a greater need for
comparable population statistics (those for whom precision at granular level is required).
The use of national definitions can also give rise to issues of double counting when
people move between Member States, and this can cause discrepancies in European
population statistics. Data users and international partners of Eurostat identified similar
problems, for instance when counting people who migrate between Member States to
study or work, or where people have second homes and spend parts of the year living in
two or more places.
EU3 – To what extent are the users satisfied?
 Users are generally of the opinion that European population statistics are of high
quality overall and add value compared to other sources of statistics. The overall level of
appreciation has been high since at least 2009, during the implementation of this
intervention.
Eurostat regularly conducts standardised user satisfaction surveys (USS) that provide a
certain level of breakdown by topic areas. These can be used to obtain a time series to
benchmark the OPC results. Figure 13 shows USS results for 2009-2020 on overall
quality of the relevant area ‘Population and social conditions’ (more specific results for
population statistics are not available) and compares these results to the average over all
areas. There is a continuous high rating (80% or more of users ranking it as ‘Very
good/Good’) with almost no variation between 2009 and 2019, both in the relevant area
and in the average. The small annual variations are very similar between the area-specific
Figure 10 – Population-base definitions currently in use across ESS members, according to responses to the NSI
survey. (Source: ICF analysis of NSI survey results)
41
and average results, which suggests an effect mainly from variations in respondent
groups between the years48
.
In the OPC, a vast majority of respondents across all stakeholder groups (more than 75%
in each group) agreed that the statistics are of high quality overall. This aligns with the
results seen in the USS time series, when the categories ‘Very good/Good’ and
‘Adequate’ are added together. Another question in the OPC was whether the current EU
legislation adds value compared to other sources (national and international). Here again,
the vast majority of respondents from all stakeholder groups (70% or more in all groups)
agreed with the statement. The same high level of agreement of 70% or more is also
found across all stakeholder groups on the question of whether the legislation enables
them to obtain statistics from a single source. These responses need to be contextualised
by feedback from EU-level institutional users (Commission DGs), who continue to stress
key gaps and shortcomings for EU policymaking (see RE1, Section 5.2) both in the
targeted consultation and on other occasions (e.g. regular sectoral Eurostat hearings with
main user DGs).
5.8. Statistical quality (SQ)
Statistical quality dimensions evaluated in this section follow the ESS handbook for
quality and metadata reporting (2021 re-edition)49
, which is based on the European
statistics Code of Practice (2017 revision)50
rooted in Articles 11 and 12 of Regulation
(EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (footnote 17).
SQ1 – Coherence
 The intervention has largely improved coherence and consistency between datasets,
but gaps remain due to the lack of harmonisation in the population base.
Within the scope of this evaluation, coherence refers to the compatibility of information
across different datasets produced by the same entity (NSI or other) but potentially under
48
There is one notable increase from 2019 to 2020, but average satisfaction increases very similarly, which
suggests another (bigger) effect of the particular composition of the respondent group.
49
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-manuals-and-guidelines/-/ks-gq-21-021
50
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-catalogues/-/KS-02-18-142
Figure 11 – Left: Eurostat user satisfaction survey opinions on overall quality of the area “Population and social
conditions”. Right: Comparison of the “Very good” category between area specific and average results. (Source:
Eurostat analysis of user satisfaction survey results)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Very good / Good Adequate
Poor / Very poor No opinion
55%
60%
65%
70%
75%
Population and social conditions
Average over all areas
42
different base acts (e.g. census vs annual population vs migrant population, etc.). This is
in line with the ESS handbook conceptualisation, which compares data produced from
different statistical processes. For instance, at the baseline, total population aggregates
were notoriously inconsistent between annual demographic and migrant population
datasets. Only the Demography Regulation links the population used at national level to
that of the migrant stocks, so that these inconsistencies disappear from 2014 onwards
(SQ1.3, Figure 14 left). Similarly, population stocks from 2011 are largely consistent
with the census results of the same reference year for 25 ESS members (SQ1.4).
However, the harmonisation gap for the population base under the current legal
framework (question RI2) leads to coherence issues that have persisted since the
intervention. For instance, according to the metadata51
, 18 ESS members nominally apply
the strict usual-residence concept based on a twelve-month stay for all annual population-
stock data at national level (2020, SQ1.1). However, 5 of these 18 report different
population totals between the dataset for Council voting weights (where strict usual-
residence rules are enforced) and other annual population-stock datasets in 2020. This
suggests an incoherent implementation of the usual-residence concept at national level
(SQ1.2). In other situations, different population bases are used for population stocks and
migration flows, which leads to inconsistencies between stock differences and
demographic changes (demographic balance) between reference years. For any reference
year since the baseline, between 15 and 21 ESS members have reported inconsistent
demographic balances (SQ1.5, Figure 14 right). The intervention did not improve this
situation because the underlying harmonisation gap was not resolved from the outset.
SQ2 – Comparability
 Generally, comparability at EU level is high and this is acknowledged by users
(EU2). However, the lack of harmonisation in the population base has a negative impact.
According to the ESS handbook, comparability refers to data from nominally the same
statistical processes across geographic regions and/or time spans. For this evaluation, the
concept is interpreted as comparability between ESS members and over reference
periods. The intervention has hugely improved the situation in this regard by regulating
common concepts and definitions for all Member States. This is largely acknowledged by
51
There is a notable discrepancy between population bases used by Member States according to the
metadata and according to the NSI survey responses (EU2, Section 5.7). The present analysis does not
delve into this discrepancy.
Figure 12 – Left: Number of ESS members with inconsistent population-stock aggregates across annual datasets
(SQ1.3). Right: Number of ESS members with inconsistent demographic balances between reference years (SQ1.5).
(Source: Eurostat analysis of Eurobase datasets)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
0
5
10
15
20
25
43
users as documented under question EU1 (Section 5.7). Given the considerable progress
compared to the baseline situation (no legal base for common concepts/definitions), the
remaining comparability gaps surfacing in the data should be understood in context.
For instance, the differences between total populations reported for Council voting
weights (strict usual-residence rules nominally enforced) and in other annual datasets (no
common population-base enforced) may be used as a rough proxy indicator for the
remaining level of comparability limitation across Member States (SQ2.1). From 2014 to
2020, relative differences over the years were on average less than 1% (for 23 of 27
Member States), and the largest relative differences encountered for individual Member
States were always below 5% for any reference year. Other interesting comparability
issues emerge from the comparison of migration flows, where nominally ‘mirror’ flows
should be comparable (immigration from country A reported by country B vs emigration
to B reported by A), but the under-coverage of emigration is a known problem. Indeed, at
individual-country level, large comparability gaps have remained since the baseline and
up to today (SQ2.2), although the underlying data are voluntary. A similar consistency
check at the level of total intra-EU migration (SQ2.3) – based on mandatory data under
the Migration Regulation – reveals much better comparability overall and a significant
improvement from an asymmetry of 13.8% at the baseline down to 7.5% in 2016 and
down to 3.7% in 201952
.
Finally, time-series revisions of data may either improve accuracy post hoc (e.g. of the
annual data following census years – see SQ3), or they may adapt the time series to new
concepts or definitions retrospectively. In both cases, time-series revisions also improve
the comparability of data over time. However, the current legal framework does not
contain any provisions on time-series revisions of annual data. Most respondents to the
public consultation across almost all key stakeholder groups give high priority to
potential future improvements that would lead to better rules on revisions.
SQ3 – Accuracy
 The current non-availability of metadata on accuracy across most Member States is a
critical issue. Therefore, a quantitative accuracy assessment is currently very difficult or
impossible.
Accuracy measures the reliability of data values in terms of bias and variation. As a first
and crucial finding, the quality metadata made available by Member States do not
currently document this quality dimension sufficiently (SQ3.1). For instance, virtually no
information is provided on uncertainties (confidence intervals) of the data. On coverage
errors (SQ3.3), only 2 ESS members provide quantitative estimates for annual population
stocks under the Demography Regulation, and 8 ESS members provide them for census
2011 outputs at NUTS 2 level, with average magnitudes around 2% and the largest
magnitudes up to 8% (under-coverage).
Non-provision of data points is also an accuracy issue. While this is typically not a
problem for mandatory datasets (where compliance requires Member States to provide
the data), statistical confidentiality may become a challenge for very detailed cross-
tabulations mainly occurring in census outputs. As a general rule, any confidentiality
treatment leads to loss of accuracy. When cell suppression is applied, this may lead to
considerable parts of output tables not being published. This was the case in the 2011
52
This also reflects increased Eurostat efforts that started after 2014 to facilitate bilateral information
exchange to reduce coverage errors and thus reduce the underestimation of emigration flows.
44
census round (SQ3.2), where nine ESS member used cell suppression. Among those
countries, on average 116 (57%) of the output tables were affected and the average share
of suppressed cells per affected output table was 2.4% (but going up to 76% in rare
cases).
Finally, data revisions may be seen as a proxy indicator of accuracy. This is particularly
true for revisions of annual data around census years in countries conducting a traditional
census with full enumeration. Typically, census results are much more accurate and can
thus be used as a benchmark to assess the level of accuracy of (pre-revised) annual data.
For instance, after the 2011 census, 18 ESS members revised parts of their annual time
series with average correction magnitudes at total population level around 1.4% but up to
7.5% (SQ3.4)53
.
SQ4 – Timeliness and SQ5 – Punctuality
 Even though agreed deadlines became longer through the intervention, the
significantly improved punctuality improved the overall timeliness of complete EU-level
data. A comparison to national and other international practices shows room for further
improvement on timeliness.
Timeliness and punctuality are different but related concepts best discussed together.
While punctuality refers to the delay between data delivery and the nominally agreed
deadline, timeliness refers to the delay between data delivery and the reference date of
the data. Thus, timeliness consists of two delay components: agreed nominal deadlines
and the punctuality of keeping these deadlines. There is an intricate interplay between
these components when moving from voluntary to mandatory data. Typically, in a
voluntary scenario, more ambitious deadlines can be agreed (because they are not legally
binding) and thus the greater issues are in punctuality. A different dynamic is at work
when regulating data collections: it is more difficult to agree on an ambitious deadline in
these cases, but punctuality is then much better (because it becomes a compliance factor).
53
Correction magnitudes can be significantly higher in breakdowns (e.g. up to 21% for some sex/age
groups). This stresses the importance of consistent and comprehensive revisions at least for all major
demographic and regional breakdowns, not only for population totals.
Figure 13 – Timeliness (SQ4.1, left) and punctuality (SQ5.1, right) of annual population data across the
intervention period: smallest and largest delays for individual ESS members and average over all ESS members (in
days). (Source: Eurostat analysis of data transmission dates recorded internally)
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Smallest delay Average delay
Biggest delay
-100
0
100
200
300
400
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Smallest delay Average delay
Biggest delay
45
Figure 15 shows the development of timeliness (SQ4.1, left) and punctuality (SQ5.1,
right) of annual population data from the baseline until 2019, illustrating these two main
effects of the Demography Regulation: after 2013, (i) the nominal deadline became
longer – from 8.5 months to 12 months after the reference date – and (ii) the punctuality
improved significantly. If completeness across all Member States is the goal at EU level,
the longest delays are relevant. Here there has been an improvement in punctuality so
that overall timeliness improved from the baseline (up to a delay of 552 days in 2010,
with a delay in punctuality of up to 294 days) to post-intervention (the longest delay was
of 397 days in 2013, with a delay in punctuality of up to 31 days).
Nevertheless, SQ4.2 shows that the current timeliness of annual European statistics
remains below the timeliness of national statistical publications and other international
statistics transmissions across most Member States. For instance, 22 ESS members
publish national population stock data within 6 months of the reference date. And at least
17 ESS members also manage to publish data on vital events and on migration within 6
months of the reference date. Moreover, 13 ESS members send provisional data on vital
events to the United Nations Statistics Division within 4 months of the reference year.
SQ6 – Relevance
 Apart from the high policy relevance of statistical topics addressed through the
intervention (RI1), mandatory datasets ensure completeness at EU level, thus making
statistics much more relevant.
In this evaluation, there is considerable overlap between relevance as a statistical-quality
dimension and the concept of relevance of the intervention addressed in Sections 5.1
and 5.2. In particular, questions RI1 to RE2 have pointed out that the intervention was
initially highly relevant in terms of data needs and quality goals, but has lost relevance
over time since the implementation. This loss in relevance was due to emerging needs on
data content and further quality aspects that the adopted legal framework was not flexible
enough to accommodate.
Another aspect of relevance that should complement this picture is completeness, namely
within the scope of this evaluation especially completeness of annual data across ESS
Figure 14 – EU-level completeness of breakdowns over time: those that became mandatory through the
intervention (SQ6.1) and those that remain voluntary until today (SQ6.2). (Source: Eurostat analysis of Eurobase
datasets)
0,0%
20,0%
40,0%
60,0%
80,0%
100,0%
SQ6.1 - mandatory SQ6.2 - voluntary
46
members. Figure 16 shows the development of completeness of annual54
datasets over
time that are now regulated (SQ6.1) and of datasets that remain voluntary (SQ6.2). As
observed in various earlier instances, there is a significant regulatory effect. The
completeness of mandatory data increased to practically 100% in two steps correlated
with the adoption of the Migration and Demography Regulations in 2007 and 2013
respectively. In the wake of the Migration Regulation, the completeness of voluntary data
improved moderately, but has stagnated at around 60% ever since.
6. CONCLUSIONS
6.1. What is working well
This evaluation has documented significant overall improvements in European
population statistics through the intervention, compared to the initial problems and needs
faced by the statistical community before the intervention. In particular, the current legal
framework has significantly increased EU value added. It achieved this by greatly
improving – for the datasets that became regulated – EU-level: (i) completeness and
comparability (evaluation question EU1); (ii) coherence and consistency (SQ1); and (iii)
timeliness (SQ4). Moreover, RI1 showed that these now-mandatory datasets delivered on
all relevant topical needs for policymaking and institutions at EU level that were known
at the baseline in the 2000s. The intervention thus improved the effectiveness (EE1-3),
efficiency (EI1-6), and coherence (CI1-2, CE1-3) of the statistical framework compared
to the baseline situation, which relied solely on voluntary data collections. In the
stakeholder consultation, most respondents across all key stakeholder groups confirmed
these improvements (e.g. EU1) and stressed the added value of the current legal
framework at EU level (EU3).
6.2. What is not working well
This evaluation has also revealed significant and persisting gaps in the EU’s legal
framework for statistics. More precisely, the current legal framework:
1. does not fully ensure sufficiently complete, coherent, and comparable statistics,
especially when voluntary datasets covering relevant policy needs are factored in,
which may lead to sub-optimal statistical evidence for decision-making;
2. does not ensure sufficient availability of population data in terms of frequencies
and timeliness of data publications;
3. fails to capture characteristics and details of topics or groups that have become
politically and societally relevant during the past decade;
4. is not flexible enough to adapt to evolving policy needs and to enable exploitation
of data from administrative and other new sources in the Member States and at
EU level.
Each gap is briefly elaborated on in the paragraphs below.
Gap 1: Coherence, comparability, completeness
The most significant quality gap remaining is the lack of harmonisation of the population
base. More precisely, three conceptually different definitions (usual residence, registered
54
As pointed out in question CI1, census outputs are fully mandatory and thus complete, up to the
suppression issue addressed in question SQ3 on accuracy.
47
residence, legal residence) are currently allowed and applied by Member States,
sometimes using different definitions for different datasets. The legislation is not detailed
enough to define exhaustively what is included in (and excluded from) the population.
This leads to issues of relevance (RI2, RE1) as well as statistical coherence (SQ1) and
comparability (SQ2). Notably, it creates a situation where the vast body of demographic
and migration statistics cannot reach its potential in terms of comparability between
Member States and coherence between datasets due to differences in the definitions
applied. The lack of provisions on time-series revisions is another gap leading to reduced
comparability over time (SQ2).
Many statistical outputs continue to be collected under voluntary arrangements55
. This
leads to various quality (and other) gaps documented in this evaluation. It reduces the
effectiveness (EE1), efficiency (EI2 incl. REFIT relevance) and internal coherence (CI1)
of the intervention, but it also leads to reduced EU value added (EU1), mainly due to
completeness gaps across Member States (SQ6). This finding is in line with the opinion
of respondents to the OPC across all stakeholder groups – except statistics producers –
that potential future improvements should include measures to regulate the provision of
data that are currently collected and provided voluntarily.
Gap 2: Timeliness and frequency
The current timeliness of the statistics (for annual and – in particular – census data)
remains below user expectations (RE1). It also remains below the timeliness of national
statistical publications and other international statistics transmissions across most
Member States (SQ4). Similarly, annual frequency is perceived by users as insufficient
for various policy needs, for instance urban/rural integration (requiring seasonal data –
RE1) and dynamic crisis response (requiring effective measures for quick and highly
frequent – e.g. monthly or weekly – ad hoc data). This problem with timeliness is also
connected to the lack of flexibility (RE2).
Gap 3: Details of politically and societally relevant topics and groups
Question RE1 has established various gaps in statistical detail that have significantly
reduced the policy relevance of the current legal framework over time. Most notably,
these gaps concern the characteristics of politically relevant topics and groups (e.g.
housing data for the Green Deal; data on migrants and EU mobility; data on the
urban/rural population; and data on vulnerable minority groups for policies on non-
discrimination and fundamental rights). These gaps can also be seen in the insufficient
geographic granularity of the statistics (including most notably functional typologies and
georeferenced data for urban/rural integration and cross-border analysis). These gaps
were confirmed through the targeted consultation with Commission statistical
correspondents, but also by most respondents to the OPC across almost all key
stakeholder groups.
Gap 4: The lack of flexibility of the legal framework
Question RE2 has generally established that the current legal framework is failing to
adapt sufficiently to changing policy needs. This has led to a gradual loss of relevance
over time and to lost opportunities for efficiency gains (EI2). In particular, the framework
establishes a fixed set of statistical units, variables/breakdowns and cross-tabulations to
be produced regularly, without specific mechanisms to update these statistical contents
55
E.g. on marriages, divorces, legally induced abortions, losses of citizenship, as well as certain
breakdowns of migration stocks and flows, live births and deaths.
48
efficiently. It also does not fully embrace the exploitation of data from administrative
sources, and in particular other new sources, that may become – and are already
becoming – available in the Member States and at EU level. Finally, the current legal
framework remains output oriented, thus allowing multisource statistics. However,
legislation does not sufficiently promote the use of data sources such as EU-level
administrative records and privately held data (including for instance geospatial systems
or mobile operators’ data).
6.3. Lessons learnt
The key legislative drivers for the gaps identified can be summarised in the four bullet
points below.
 Only mandatory data collections with defined common rules can ensure
completeness and timeliness of statistics at EU level. Regulating voluntary data
collections that already have high completeness may significantly improve
effectiveness and efficiency as considerable EU added value can be generated at
limited incremental cost.
 Voluntary data collections are appropriate instruments to pilot the production of
new topics or characteristics, and to foster the incremental capability of national
statistical systems to provide such new data. However, they tend to become
inefficient over time because recurrent production costs eventually fail to
generate substantial EU value added in terms of completeness across Member
States.
 Loose legal definitions of statistical topics lead to loss of control over conceptual
harmonisation. This ultimately leads to a loss of coherence and comparability
over time. The example of the definition of the population base has shown how a
defaulting clause originally introduced as an exception with limited scope has
turned into a new factual standard.
 A legal framework that is too rigid makes it difficult to maintain relevance over
time. The intervention has been losing relevance rather quickly, beginning
already during its implementation period, due to a lack of flexibility mechanisms
to adapt data collections to evolving needs56
or to profit from opportunities driven
by new data sources becoming available.
Finally, this evaluation has also identified two regulatory causes of current inefficiencies
in a REFIT context (Section 5.4). In particular, question EI1 has identified administrative
redundancies in compliance, enforcement and monitoring. This is because the current
legislation is scattered across three legal acts that were not developed together.
Moreover, EI2 has shown that the current status quo of producing many voluntary
datasets with high – but not full – completeness across Member States leads to
significantly reduced efficiency at EU level.
56
With a minor exception under the Census Regulation, which leaves certain room to define statistical
needs for each EU census round shortly before the census year, thus maintaining a higher relevance of
census outputs over time. However, the 2021 round has shown that this flexibility was not sufficient in
terms of introducing georeferenced data.
49
ANNEX 1: PROCEDURAL INFORMATION
1. LEAD DG, DECIDE PLANNING/CWP REFERENCES
Lead DG Eurostat
Decide Planning PLAN/2021/1058457
CWP reference CWP 2022 Annex II - REFIT
2. ORGANISATION AND TIMING
After political validation of the ESOP initiative in February 2021, an ISG chaired by
Eurostat and composed of representatives of 16 Commission DGs58
was set up. The role
of this ISG was to supervise progress on the combined evaluation and impact assessment,
including the stakeholder consultations. The ISG met four times to discuss the evaluation
in this staff working document. Details and dates of these meetings are set out in the table
below
Meeting date Topics discussed
31.3.2021  Introduction to European population statistics
 Draft evaluation roadmap/inception impact assessment (IIA)
 Draft consultation strategy
 Draft terms of reference for a tender on evaluation/impact
assessment support
20.8.2021  Introduction of contractor ICF for support study
 Progress on evaluation/IA incl. contractor inception results
 Stakeholder consultation plan, activities and timing
 Draft OPC questionnaire (launch of written consultation)
21.10.2021  Progress on evaluation/IA incl. contractor interim results
 Update on stakeholder consultation activities
27.1.2022  Contractor feedback on final workshop results
 Complete draft SWD on evaluation for endorsement
 Advanced progress draft SWD on impact assessment
 Draft SWD on consultation synopsis report
3. EXCEPTIONS TO THE BETTER REGULATION GUIDELINES
None.
57
https://intragate.ec.europa.eu/decide/sep/?view-dossier-details-id=DORSALE-DOSSIER-2021-5573
58
AGRI, BUDG, EAC, ECFIN, EMPL, ENER, HOME, INTPA, JRC, JUST, NEAR, REGIO, RTD,
SANTE, SG and SJ.
50
4. CONSULTATION OF THE REGULATORY SCRUTINY BOARD (IF APPLICABLE)
The RSB was not consulted over the evaluation itself. However, due to a back-to-back
setting, this SWD is annexed to the SWD on impact assessment that was consulted with
the RSB at a meeting on 16 March 2022.
5. EVIDENCE, SOURCES AND QUALITY
Evidence and sources
Evidence Sources
Desk research  Statistical data and metadata published during the
evaluation period, and partially before the evaluation
period when available (baseline)
 Legal acts and explanatory memoranda related to the
intervention
 Commission reports on implementation of legislation
 Methodological guidelines and papers
 International recommendations
 Policy documents establishing statistical needs
A comprehensive list of documents reviewed is provided in
Table 4.
The fact that the existing legal framework evaluated here was
adopted before Better Regulation guidelines were in place
presented a major obstacle, as the available documentation
does not provide the richness and comprehensiveness of
information typically required for evaluation. The stakeholder
consultations attempted to balance resulting gaps as much as
possible.
Opinion of statistics
users: Commission
services
 Written consultation with the Commission network of
statistical correspondents
 Bilateral exchanges to identify specific needs
 OPC survey
Opinion of other
statistics users
 Topical workshop with selected organisational statistics
users on problem definition
 In-depth interviews with selected organisational statistics
users
 OPC survey
Opinion of statistics
producers
 Regular consultation of expert groups (see below)
 Case studies with five selected Member States
 OPC survey
 Targeted survey with NSIs complementing the OPC
51
Expert advice used
Eurostat has regularly engaged its relevant expert groups (see Register of Commission
Expert Groups59
) to seek advice and inputs on the progress of evaluation and impact
assessment. The European Statistical System Committee was also informed about the
progress. The three expert groups are:
 the Working Group on Population and Housing Censuses (E01544) and its
subgroup the Task Force on the Future of Censuses;
 the Working Group on Population Statistics (E03076);
 the European Directors of Social Statistics (E01552).
External support study
Eurostat carried out this evaluation with topical support from a contractor study carried
out by ICF SA, Belgium. In particular, the support study provided: (i) the economic and
subsidiarity analysis; (ii) the case studies on population definitions; and (iii)
organisational support on stakeholder consultation activities. Parts of this evaluation
SWD are therefore based on the final report on evaluation support and other analysis
documents prepared by the contractor.
Quality
Based on the evidence sources and expert advice mentioned, Eurostat has carried out this
evaluation mostly in-house, with topical support from an external support provider on
cost assessment and an economic study as also mentioned above. Annex 4 provides the
complete research framework for this evaluation including all questions answered,
corresponding indicators analysed and mapping onto evidence sources or the support
study where applicable.
Eurostat has documented all internal research on applicable indicators in detail (indicator
definition, specific sources, measurement approach, raw data and analysis). All external
references relevant for answering the evaluation questions were also added to this report.
Eurostat has also monitored the work of the external support contractor regularly (at least
every two weeks) and assessed the quality of the final report on evaluation from the
external support study. The overall work quality and deliverables were found to be in line
with the contract and generally sufficient to be used for this evaluation.
59
https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/expert-groups-register/screen/home
52
Table 4 – List of reviewed documents
Author Published Title
Agilis 2017 Analysis of the legal and
institutional environment in the EU
Member States and EFTA Countries
DG ECFIN 2009-2021 Ageing Report 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021
DG ECFIN 2021 Euro Area Housing Markets: Trends, Challenges and
Policy Responses
DG HOME 2009-2020 Annual reports on migration and asylum
DG JUST 2018 Guidelines on improving the collection and use of
equality data
DG JUST 2017 Analysis and comparative review of equality data
collection practices in the European Union – Equality
data indicators: Methodological approach Overview
per EU Member State Technical annex
DG JUST 2017 Legal framework and practice in the EU Member
States
DG JUST 2016 European handbook on equality data
DG REGIO 2022 8th
Report on Economic, Social and Territorial
Cohesion
DG REGIO 2017 7th
Report on Economic, Social and Territorial
Cohesion
DG REGIO 2014 6th
Report on Economic, Social and Territorial
Cohesion
European Central Bank
(ECB)
2018 The state of the housing market in the euro area (ECB
Economic Bulletin, Issue 7/2018)
European Commission 2021 Green paper on ageing: Fostering solidarity and
responsibility between generations
European Commission 2021 Report from the Commission to the European
Parliament and the Council on the implementation of
Regulation (EC) No 862/2007
European Commission 2018 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU)
2018/1799 on a temporary direct statistical action for
the dissemination of selected topics of the 2021
population and housing census geocoded to a 1 km2
grid
European Commission 2018 Report from the Commission to the European
Parliament and the Council on the implementation of
Regulation (EC) No 862/2007
European Commission 2018 Report from the Commission to the European
Parliament and the Council on the implementation of
Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013
European Commission 2017 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/881
implementing Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 on
population and housing censuses, as regards the
modalities and structure of the quality reports and the
53
Author Published Title
technical format for data transmission
European Commission 2017 Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/712 establishing
the reference year and the programme of the statistical
data and metadata for population and housing
censuses provided for by Regulation (EC) No
763/2008
European Commission 2017 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/543
laying down rules for the application of Regulation
(EC) No 763/2008 on population and housing
censuses as regards the technical specifications of the
topics and of their breakdowns
European Commission 2015 Report from the Commission to the European
Parliament and the Council on the implementation of
Regulation (EC) No 862/2007
European Commission 2014 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No
205/2014 laying down uniformed conditions for the
implementation of Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 on
European demographic statistics, as regards
breakdowns of data, deadlines and data revisions
European Commission 2012 Report from the Commission to the European
Parliament and the Council on the implementation of
Regulation (EC) No 862/2007
European Commission 2011 Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament
and of the Council on European statistics on
demography
European Commission 2010 Commission Regulation (EU) No 1151/2010
implementing Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 on
population and housing censuses, as regards the
modalities and structure of the quality reports and the
technical format for data transmission
European Commission 2010 Commission Regulation (EU) No 519/2010 adopting
the programme of the statistical data and of the
metadata for population and housing censuses
provided for by Regulation (EC) No 763/2008
European Commission 2010 Commission Regulation (EU) No 351/2010
implementing Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on
Community statistics on migration and international
protection as regards the definitions of the categories
of the groups of country of birth, groups of country of
previous usual residence, groups of country of next
usual residence and groups of citizenship
European Commission 2009 Commission Regulation (EC) No 1201/2009
implementing Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 on
population and housing censuses as regards the
technical specifications of the topics and of their
breakdowns
European Commission 2007 Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament
and of the Council on population and housing
54
Author Published Title
censuses
European Commission 2005 Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament
and of the Council on Community statistics on
migration and international protection
European Committee of the
Regions
2016 The impact of demographic change on European
regions
European Parliament 2021 Resolution of 21 January 2021 on access to decent
and affordable housing for all
European Parliament 2019 Demographic trends in EU regions
European Parliament and
Council
2019 REGULATION (EU) 2019/1700 establishing a
common framework for European statistics relating to
persons and households, based on data at individual
level collected from samples
European Parliament and
Council
2013 Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 on European
demographic statistics
European Parliament and
Council
2013 Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 on the European
system of national and regional accounts in the
European Union
European Parliament and
Council
2009 Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics
European Parliament and
Council
2008 Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 on population and
housing censuses
European Parliament and
Council
2007 Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Community
statistics on migration and international protection
European Parliamentary
Research Service (EPRS)
2021 Demographic Outlook for the European Union
European Parliamentary
Research Service (EPRS)
2013 How can regional and cohesion policies tackle
demographic challenges?
Eurostat 2021 European statistical system handbook for quality and
metadata reports
Eurostat 2007-2021 Sustainable development in the European Union —
Monitoring reports on progress towards the SDGs in
an EU context 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, 2021
Eurostat 2021 The European System of Accounts — ESA 2010 —
interactive version
Eurostat 2020 Quality assurance framework of the European
statistical system
Eurostat 2010-2020 Report on the impact of demographic change 2010,
2015, 2020
Eurostat 2014-2020 Eurostat Regional Yearbook 2010, 2014, 2020
Eurostat 2009-2020 Eurostat User Satisfaction Survey reports 2009, 2013-
2017, 2019-2020
Eurostat 2019 EU legislation on the 2021 population and housing
55
Author Published Title
censuses – explanatory notes
Eurostat 2018 European statistics code of practice for the national
statistical authorities and Eurostat
Eurostat 2011 EU legislation on the 2011 population and housing
censuses – explanatory notes
ESSnet KOMUSO 2019 Quality Guidelines for Multisource Statistics
ESSnet KOMUSO 2019 Quality Guidelines on Frames for Social Statistics
ICF 2022 Final report on evaluation support study for European
statistics on population
ICF 2021 Inception Report on support study for European
statistics on population
United Nations 2017 Principles and Recommendations for Population and
Housing Censuses
United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe
(UNECE)
2018 Guidelines on the use of registers and administrative
data for population and housing censuses
United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe
(UNECE)
2015 Recommendations for the 2020 Censuses of
Population and Housing
United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe
(UNECE)
2014 Measuring population and housing. Practices of
UNECE countries in the 2010 round of censuses
United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe
(UNECE)
2008 Measuring population and housing Practices of
UNECE countries in the 2000 round of censuses
56
ANNEX 2: METHODS AND ANALYTICAL MODELS
The external contractor ICF has developed an approach to estimate the baseline and
incremental costs on Member States and the Commission (Eurostat) under this
intervention, broken down by statistical domain in scope. The estimation documentation
is provided here below.
Detailed approach to the quantification of costs and benefits (efficiency)
The costs and benefits estimated as part of this evaluation have been those associated
with the current legal framework on annual population statistics and more specifically
focusing on:
 Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Migration;
 Regulation No 1260/2013 on demographic statistics;
 Regulation No 763/2008 on population and housing censuses.
Costs have been calculated for four main stakeholder groups, namely: (i) Member States
and their NSIs; (ii) the European Commission, including Eurostat specifically; (iii)
employers/businesses/non-institutional data users; and (iv) EU citizens and non-EU
nationals. The first two groups are generally referred to as ‘public administration’ for the
purposes of cost assessments.
Cost-and-benefit items were identified and considered for all four groups. However, it
was only possible to calculate quantified cost estimates for the first two groups, and it
was generally not appropriate to calculate benefits. This was in part due to a lack of
available data, for example on the costs to citizens of participating in census rounds.
More generally however, it was because certain costs and benefits were inappropriate for
quantification due to their effects being more ambiguous and variable across Member
States and stakeholder groups. For example, the benefits to non-institutional data users
from increased access to high-quality European statistics on population would be
challenging to quantify. This is because these benefits would depend on several
additional factors, such as how these data would be used or the cost of accessing data
through alternative sources. Therefore, estimates for benefits are not available, and it is
possible that the estimates for costs reported are an underestimate.
Our overall approach to estimating costs and benefits consisted of the key steps set out in
the bullet points below.
 Firstly, the cost-and-benefit items associated with each regulation and relevant
provisions were identified and itemised. This itemisation considered: (i) the type
of cost (i.e. one-off/recurring and overall cost categories); (ii) the stakeholder
group impacted; and (iii) for Member States, what proportion and to what extent
these Member States were impacted by the implementation of the current legal
framework. The evaluation has taken into consideration the fact that Member
States were already providing data on a voluntary basis before the implementation
of the different Regulations. The costs-and-benefits itemisation was reviewed and
refined in cooperation with Eurostat.
 As noted above, the contractor determined – and agreed with Eurostat – that it
was not possible to quantify all benefits. For each cost item, estimates for the
value of the cost were developed. Details are set out below on how this process
varied between stakeholder groups and regulations/types of data. Overall,
57
estimates and assumptions were based on a combination of several factors,
including:
o inputs provided by Eurostat, including through regular meetings/feedback
requests as well as data on administrative-, grant-, IT/infrastructure- and
contract-related costs to Eurostat associated with the three in-scope
Regulations;
o a review of the completeness of voluntary and mandatory statistics over
time;
o a survey of Member States on costs associated with population statistics;
o data gathered throughout the research study, including the workshops,
literature review, NSI survey and OPC;
o The study team members’ experience of conducting similar quantification
exercises, in particular on the cost of reporting to the EU, training of staff,
familiarisation with EU legislation, transposition, and compliance costs
(the approach is similar to: (i) one used most recently for a DG HOME
study assessing the impacts of possible revisions to the Long-Term
Residency and Single Permit Directives in 2021 (positive opinion of the
RSB in October 2021); (ii) a DG JUST Study on the impacts of a possible
revision of the Consumer Credit Directive (CCD) in 2020-2021 (positive
opinion of the RSB in May 2021); and (iii) a DG HOME Evaluation of the
Counter-Terrorism Directive (positive opinion of the RSB in July 2021),
among others in previous years).
 Costs and cost-savings for each cost item were then aggregated across Member
States where relevant, and over the period between the implementation of the
relevant regulation60
and 2021.
 This enabled aggregate costs across all relevant Member States to account for: (i)
differences in costs across Member States (e.g. public sector salaries61
); and (ii)
the extent to which Member States were impacted by the Regulations62
. This also
accounted for costs accrued across a longer time period. For the sake of simplicity
and comparison, the evaluation estimated all costs in 2021 EUR.
 Finally, estimated costs were aggregated for each Regulation and estimated by
stakeholder group (Member States and the European Commission) and cost type
(i.e. one-off and recurring). Recurring costs were estimated as average annual
costs across all Member States. Costs are all estimated in 2021 EUR and as
incremental, relative to the estimated baseline costs (i.e. the costs incurred before
the implementation of the Regulations due to voluntary data
provisions/collections). Details of what this aggregation process consisted of are
60
2007 for Regulation No 862/2007 on Migration; 2013 for Regulation No 1260/2013 on Demographic
Statistics; and 2008 for Regulation No 763/2008 on Population and Housing Censuses.
61
Salaries across Member States were estimated using the estimated daily labour cost of public
administration staff, assuming 215 working days per year: Labour cost, wages and salaries, direct
remuneration (excluding apprentices) by NACE Rev. 2 activity ) - LCS surveys 2008, 2012 and 2016
[lc_ncost_r2]. Salaries are projected to 2021 using the HICP index (2020=100).
62
Due to limitations in the available data on which Member States were – or are likely to be – affected by
the Regulations/changes specifically, this proportion was calculated on the total costs across all
Member States (i.e. if it was assumed that 50% of Member States would be affected, the cost was
estimated to be 50% of the total overall cost across all Member States). This may not be entirely
accurate, however, since costs, such as labour costs, vary across Member States.
58
set out below along with specific calculations and assumptions applied to
estimate costs for each stakeholder group and limitations of the model.
Evaluation
Annual population data (Demography and Migration Regulations)
For costs associated with the introduction of the Demography and Migration Regulations
(i.e. No 862/2007 and No 1260/2013), following the estimation of the values for each
cost item (as set out in step 2 above), overall costs (i.e. step 3 and 4) were estimated as
set out in the bullet points below.
 Firstly, the baseline costs were estimated, i.e. the costs incurred before the
implementation of the relevant Regulations (i.e. 2007 for the Migration
Regulation and 2013 for the Demography Regulation). These costs related to the
collection, analysis and publication of demographic and migration data that was
provided voluntarily before the introduction of the Regulation, and later made
mandatory63
. These costs are aggregated across all Member States (where
relevant) but estimated for one year only, rather than by an average of annual
costs over several years. This approach was chosen because, before the
introduction of the Regulation, Member States provided data to Eurostat on a
voluntary basis. Therefore, even though there was no obligation at that time to
provide data, some costs were still incurred by both stakeholders in collecting,
sending and publishing the data64
.
 In the second step, the contractor calculated the total costs (annual average across
the period between implementation and 2021 for recurring costs) for all new costs
associated with the introduction of the Regulations, as set out in the cost
itemisation, across each stakeholder group (all Member States and the
Commission) as per step 3 above. Then, it added all these figures for all cost
items into an overall total for all new one-off and recurring costs to Member
States and the Commission.
 Finally, the relevant baseline cost was subtracted from the total current cost
calculated (by cost type and stakeholder group) to estimate the total incremental
cost (annual average for recurring costs) to all Member States associated with the
introduction of the Regulations.
Estimation of costs for the European Commission, including Eurostat
63
Migration and demographic data points that were provided voluntarily before the introduction of the
Regulations and remain voluntary were excluded from the analysis as part of the evaluation. This was
because these data points were not deemed to be costs related to the introduction of the Regulations.
Costs associated with the provision of voluntary data following the implementation of the three in-
scope Regulations are included within the impact assessment, which assesses the impact of making
these data points mandatory.
64
However, a certain proportion of those costs would be incurred by Member States regardless, because
production of these data would be in line with national interests. To take this into account, we reduce
administrative costs at the baseline by 50%.
59
The main costs for the European Commission – and how these costs were calculated –
are set out in the bullet points below.
 The first category of costs was the introduction and subsequent monitoring,
reporting and enforcement of the Regulations. The Regulations required Eurostat
to be provided with demographic and migration data within certain parameters of
quality and timeliness. The Regulations also required Eurostat to publish these
data and required guidance and implementing acts to be issued. The costs of these
activities were based on estimates as to the number of days that would be required
per type of activity. The number of days was then multiplied by the daily cost of a
Commission official level AD-10 (i.e. based on a monthly salary of around EUR
9 000 based on EU statistics65
), assuming an average working year of 215 days,
and an average of 17.9 days worked per month (based on figures from Eurostat
for working days for full-time equivalent (FTE) staff66
), based on the general
formula:
Number of days per FTE * number of FTEs * daily wages.
 The second category of costs was the administrative costs to Eurostat. This
included the cost of financial support (grants) provided to Member States to
enable them to provide data and attend working-group meetings and business
trips. It also included the costs of Commission research studies on the
Regulations. These estimates were based on data provided by Eurostat. For
grants, business meetings and trips, it was assumed that costs were evenly split
across the Demography and Migration Regulations. Contract costs were 100%
relating to migration data, as indicated by Eurostat67
.
 The third category of costs was the IT and infrastructure costs required by
Eurostat to implement and maintain systems that receive and publish statistical
data and metadata. These estimates were based on data provided by Eurostat. It
was assumed that costs were evenly split between the Migration and Demography
Regulations.
 The fourth category of costs was baseline costs i.e. any costs incurred by
Eurostat, relating to migration and demography data, before the introduction of
the relevant Regulations. It is assumed that the only baseline costs incurred
related to the receipt and publication of data provided voluntarily, which was later
rendered mandatory by the Regulations. No regulatory or compliance costs were
incurred due to the lack of regulation. No IT-related costs were incurred relating
to migration or demography data before the introduction of the Regulations as
none were reported by Eurostat before 2015.
65
Figures available from https://euemployment.eu/how-much-do-eu-officials-earn/.
66
This was calculated by dividing 215 by 12. Estimate available at: Eurostat (2020) Guiding principles for
the Cost analysis of European Statistics; available at:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3859598/10501168/KS-GQ-19-006-EN-N.pdf.
67
Grants are calculated as average annual costs over the entire period and presented as recurring costs,
although in practice they were provided over only 3 years. Business trips, meetings and contractual
costs are presented as recurring costs and calculated as annual average costs across the whole period.
Contract costs are presented as a one-off cost for the sake of simplicity, but in practice are incurred
over the course of 3 years.
60
Estimation of costs for national authorities
The calculations of administrative, compliance, and enforcement costs for Member States
and their NSIs were largely based on a general formula:
Number of days per FTE * number of FTEs * daily wages* proportion of MS impacted
Typically, the number of days and number of FTEs assumed for activities (such as
transposition, monitoring, reporting, familiarisation, adaptation, training, communication/
information provision, etc.) were based on the study teams’ own assumptions. These own
assumptions were in turn based on both estimates provided by NSIs within the NSI
survey and the study teams’ experience in conducting similar studies, as stated above.
For example, feedback from the NSI survey stated that Member States employ around 6
FTEs (per year) on average to compile and provide mandatory annual population data.
Therefore, assuming that respondents may have in some cases been thinking of only
demographic or migration data when providing this estimate, it is assumed throughout
the analysis that Member States employ 5 FTEs on average per regulation68
. In addition,
according to responses to the NSI survey, on average 42 FTEs were employed in each
Member State to work on population data. Assuming around 60% of these were
dedicated to the census69
it was estimated that around 8.5 FTEs in total were employed to
work on each of the Demography and Migration Regulations in each Member State.
These data, relative to the estimate provided for the FTEs required specifically for
compiling and providing mandatory annual population data, was used to derive the
number of additional FTEs (3.5 per Member State) required for additional tasks related to
the Regulations (e.g. monitoring compliance, reporting etc.). Assumptions about the
complexity of the task and data involved were also taken into account to adjust the
estimates.
When calculating baseline costs, the proportion of Member States affected by the
introduction of the Regulations was based on estimates provided by Eurostat of the
completeness of mandatory statistics over time. Based on this research, overall
mandatory statistics were provided by around 40% of Member States before 2006. This
percentage was applied to the calculation of administrative costs incurred by Member
States at the baseline before the introduction of the Regulations. As noted above, this
proportion was applied to overall total costs, since identifying specific Member States
that would be affected was not possible. When calculating costs associated with the
current Regulations, assumptions were based on the study teams’ understanding of the
processes required by each regulation. This understanding was guided by discussion with
Eurostat. This discussion covered topics such as the proportion of Member States that
would have to update their processes to align with mandated regional definitions, or
decide upon preferred definitions.
For costs relating to the IT equipment required to collect and analyse the data and
metadata required by the Regulations, costs were based on the average of all estimates
68
Between 12 and 17 NSIs provide an estimate, depending on the year.
69
This assumption is based on responses to the NSI survey, where two respondents provided an estimate of
the size of the census team relative to all staff working on population statistics (in one case the census
team represented 60% of overall staff and in another 40%), combined with the assumption that the
census is more costly.
61
from the NSI survey70
. It was assumed that costs were evenly split between the Migration
and Demography Regulations. Costs relating to the delivery of feasibility studies on the
implementation of the Demography Regulation were estimated based on grant data
provided by Eurostat, by assessing the total eligible costs to Member States for delivering
such studies. Costs relating to the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) were
estimated based on publicly available information on the ESSC’s membership and its
number of annual meetings71
.
Census data
The method adopted for estimating costs associated with the introduction of the
Population and Housing Census Regulation (No 763/2008) differed from that used to
estimate annual population statistics. This was due to the availability of data on the costs
incurred by Member States to deliver the 2000/2001 and 2010/2011 census rounds72
.
These data were drawn upon to estimate the cost to Member States, which was combined
with costs borne by the Commission to produce an overall view. For the census, the
baseline was estimated to be the cost of conducting the 1990/1991 and 2000/2001 census
rounds, whereas the ‘post-implementation’ view was equivalent to the cost of conducting
the 2011 and 2021 census rounds.
Estimation of costs for the European Commission
Costs to the European Commission, including Eurostat, associated with the introduction
of the Census Regulation were calculated using the same process as costs relating to
annual population data. Costs were calculated in relation to: (i) regulatory costs,
including the provision of grants; (ii) enforcement costs; (iii) and administrative and IT-
related or equipment-related costs. These calculations drew on the same data, general
formula and assumptions set out above, and focused on census delivery. Baseline costs
were estimated for costs relating to publishing data and IT equipment investment. The
cost of IT equipment was estimated based on UNECE data on: (i) the total cost to
Member States of delivery of the 1990 and 2001 census rounds; as well as (ii) the
70
Note that only five Member State NSIs provided an estimate of the cost of IT and infrastructure incurred.
Estimates were provided for costs incurred in 2005, 2010, 2015, 2021 and 2025. Costs included in this
analysis were average annual costs. The baseline estimate for IT costs incurred was calculated based
on the average of the estimates provided for 2005 and 2010 for demographic data, and for 2005 only
for migration data, due to the difference in when the respective Regulations were introduced. Portugal
was excluded from the baseline calculation since the estimate was provided for 2007 rather than 2005
and was unusually high, and therefore skewed the average cost estimated.
71
Available here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/european-statistical-system/governance-bodies/essc.
72
UNECE (2014) Measuring population and housing – Practices of UNECE countries in the 2010 round of
censuses, available at:
https://unece.org/DAM/stats/publications/2013/Measuring_population_and_housing_2010.pdf;
UNECE (2008) Measuring population and housing - Practices of UNECE countries in the 2000 round
of censuses, available at:
https://unece.org/DAM/stats/publications/Publication_on_2000_censuses.pdf.
62
proportion of this budget that was spent on IT73
, assuming Eurostat’s budget to be 20%
of that spent by Member States before the implementation of the Census Regulation.
All costs were then aggregated. For simplicity74
, all ongoing costs were aggregated and
presented as average annual costs, over the number of years pertaining to the baseline, or
post-Census Regulation time period. For Eurostat this was 18 and 13 years, respectively
i.e. 1990-2008, and 2008-202175
. For NSIs this was 15 years for both the period before
and after the introduction of the Census Regulation, since costs were estimated by census
round with two rounds in each period.
Estimation of costs for national authorities
Costs to national authorities were estimated by taking the following steps.
 Firstly, the data on per capita, and total76
costs associated with the delivery of the
2001 and 2011 census rounds per Member State were extracted from the UNECE
report, alongside information on the type of census conducted in each Member
State (i.e. the census methodology: traditional, register-based or combined)77
.
73
It was assumed that 8% of the overall budget was spent on IT equipment in 1990 and 9% in 2001. This is
relative to the estimated 10.5% of overall MS budget spent on equipment, assuming Eurostat requires
less equipment than MS and due to the trend of increased use of IT/technology to support censuses.
74
Some costs varied in the number of years in which they were incurred due to the nature of the cost e.g.
IT costs were incurred from 2007 and staff costs from 2012, as set out by Eurostat data. In some cases,
ongoing costs were estimated to have been incurred for only the year in which the census was
delivered, and a specific number of years before/after this. This was because some costs, such as
monitoring costs in the years before the Census Regulation, would only be incurred during the delivery
of the census itself.
75
For simplicity, the number of years between the first census round considered and the year of
implementation (2008) of the Census Regulation were counted as the ‘baseline’ years, despite the fact
that this was a longer period than the period after the introduction of the Census Regulation. This is a
robust assumption for some costs, where total values were estimated to have been incurred only in the
years before or after the Census Regulation. However, in other cases (e.g. costs drawing from the
UNECE estimates) total costs were estimated ‘per census’ and therefore the annual average cost
difference between the baseline and post-Census Regulation period may be overestimated.
76
Note that overall costs were not made available for the 2000 census in the UNECE reports. These
overall costs were therefore calculated from the per capita estimates by multiplying these by the
population in each Member State in 2000. Data extracted on 16/11/2021 17:56:32 from ESTAT.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/DEMO_PJAN__custom_1585710/default/table?lang=e
n.
77
Per capita costs had been translated to purchasing-power-parity (PPP) equivalents within the UNECE
report. However, these figures were not used in our analysis, as these would adjust costs to account for
the relative value in each Member State, whereas our analysis aimed to provide an overarching view of
costs, from a ‘union’ perspective. Costs were presented in the UNECE reports in US dollars so were
adjusted to 2021 EUR using the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers from the US Bureau of
Labor Statistics (available here: https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet) and an exchange rate of
1 USD = 0.8833 EUR (exchange rate from Bloomberg on the 17/11/2021), available here:
bloomberg.com/quote/USDEUR:CUR.
63
 Secondly, based on these figures, the total, median78
and average cost of
delivering the 2001 and 2011 census rounds were calculated, by type of census
methodology.
 Thirdly, estimates were developed for the cost of delivering the 1990 and 2021
census rounds, based on: (i) 2001 and 2011 cost data by census methodology; as
well as (ii) the trend in the number of Member States adopting each census
methodology over time. Key assumptions79
included:
o for the 1991 census: all Member States used traditional census
methodologies, and overall costs were 20% higher than in 2001 in line
with the overall trend towards cost reduction;
o for the 2021 census: more Member States (15 in total) delivered a register-
based census and fewer delivered traditional or combined censuses (8 and
4, respectively), which meant that overall costs were 20% lower than in
2011.
 Fourthly, the estimated average cost by census methodology type in 2001 (for the
1991 estimate) and 2011 (for the 2021 estimate) was multiplied by the number of
Member States assumed to have implemented each methodology, as well as the
percentage cost reduction. Costs by methodology were then aggregated into an
overall cost estimate for each round80
.
 Fifthly, compliance costs related to the monitoring and reporting on the quality of
data sent to Eurostat were then added to these estimates, as it was assumed they
were not included in the UNECE data. This cost was estimated using the average
yearly salary of a public sector official in 2020 prices, and multiplying this by the
78
This was calculated because, as stated in the UNECE reports, average values across all Member States
were often skewed by outliers with extremely high or low costs. For consistency, total costs are used
for most of the cost analysis, since costs associated with annual population statistics were calculated as
total costs to all Member States. However, it is important to note that, at the median, overall costs
decreased between 2001 and 2011, whereas average costs increased, highlighting that the presence of
strong outliers are a possible limitation in the cost estimates. For example, it could be argued that
certain Member States should be excluded from the analysis due to their being an outlier. France was
excluded from this analysis due to the fact that it chose to implement a rolling census, associated with
higher costs, a decision which arguably was not caused by the changes introduced by the Census
Regulation.
79
Assumptions based on ICF interpretation of information from UNECE (2014) Measuring population
and housing - Practices of UNECE countries in the 2010 round of censuses; available at
https://unece.org/DAM/stats/publications/2013/Measuring_population_and_housing_2010.pdf and
UNECE (2008) Measuring population and housing - Practices of UNECE countries in the 2000 round
of censuses, available at:
https://unece.org/DAM/stats/publications/Publication_on_2000_censuses.pdf.
80
Note that some estimates for the cost to Member States of delivering the 2021 census were provided in
the Eurostat cost survey of Member States as well as the NSI survey. With regards to the former, the
total and average values of all responses estimating the sum of direct and indirect costs of the 2021
census were used to check the values estimated using this method. Values for 2021 were found to be
relatively similar (i.e. estimating a total cost of EUR 1.8bn rather than EUR1.6bn, and an average
value of EUR 79m rather than EUR 108m). However, it is important to note that cost survey data may
not be reliable or consistent, since some MS reported annual costs and others may have reported total
costs of delivering the census (over many years). However, the average costs estimated by respondents
to the NSI survey were much lower than those estimated using UNECE data, for 2011 (i.e. EUR 9m
rather than more than EUR 130m). This may be due to the fact that only 15 MS provided an estimate,
and these may have been an underestimate as they only included the NSI’s operational budget for
census delivery, which may not include all cost types considered by the UNECE.
64
assumed number of FTEs and level of effort incurred. It was assumed that these
prices were incurred over the year of the census and the 5 subsequent years.
 Sixthly, overall baseline and post-Census Regulation costs were calculated by
aggregating costs to all Member States assumed to have been incurred in the 1991
and 2001 census rounds and those in the 2011 and 2021 rounds, respectively. The
former costs were subtracted from the latter to estimate the incremental cost. All
costs were then presented as annual averages, as stated above.
 Note that due to the manner through which these costs were estimated (i.e. the
fact they were drawn from UNECE data) it was not possible to estimate one-off
and recurring costs separately, since these data were not available. For this
reason, costs to Member States were presented as the overall annual average cost
of delivering the census.
65
Overview of costs and benefits
Overview of costs and benefits identified in the evaluation
I. Overview of costs (in thousands of 2021 EUR, rounded to the nearest 1 000) and benefits identified in the evaluation
NSIs/Member States Eurostat/ the EU Citizens/TCNs Non-institutional
data users
Qualitative Monetary Qualitative Monet
ary
Qualitative Qualitative
Census
One-off
costs
Set-up costs
(including changing
census methodology)
Not
estimated
Regulatory costs
related to preparing
and drafting the new
Regulation
Design, delivery and
communication of
training to staff
83 N/a N/a
Recurring
costs
(average
annual)
Administrative costs
for delivery,
including
enumeration, general
preparations,
logistics, processing,
checking and coding
data, and publication
IT and equipment
costs
25 785 Provision of financial
support
Monitoring and
publishing costs
IT equipment costs
Administrative costs
required to design and
implement new
processes
522 Time required to
participate in
census rounds
N/a
Benefits
Increased staff skills
and greater
ownership over the
data-collection
process
Increased quality and
timeliness of
statistics
Benefits related to
improved
policymaking
Increased ability to
meet both user
needs, and evolving
policy needs
Increased access to
detailed statistics to
feed into decision-
making
Not
estimated
Reduced
administrative burden
related to coordination
of voluntary data
Improved ability to
meet user needs and
adapt to evolving
policy needs
Increased access to
reliable, detailed and
high-quality statistics
Not
estimat
ed
Improved
awareness of, and
engagement with
data
Benefits
associated with
improved policy
Improved access
to open data and
evidence
(including
accurate media
reporting)
Increased access
to detailed
statistics and
ability to conduct
research
Migrat
ion One-off
costs
Administrative costs
associated with
adapting a national
definition
145 Regulatory costs
related to preparing
and drafting the new
regulation
1 001 N/a N/a
66
Administrative costs
associated with the
delivery of training
and guidance
Enforcement costs
related to monitoring,
developing and
submitting reports on
statistics compiled
Recurring
costs
(average
annual)
Compliance costs
associated with
adopting legislation
and monitoring and
reporting on
compliance with this
legislation
Enforcement costs
related to monitoring
and reporting on the
use of probable
effect of estimates
Administrative costs
related to the design
and implementation
of the programme to
collect data
IT equipment costs
3 807 Compliance costs
associated with the
ESSC
Provision of financial
support
Monitoring and
publishing costs
IT equipment costs
217 Provision and
update of data to
national authority
owners
Acceptance of
loss of privacy
N/a
Benefits
Increased staff skills
and greater
ownership over the
data-collection
process
Increased
understanding of
migration-related
issues across the EU,
and associated
reputational gains
from improved
policymaking
Increased ability to
meet both user needs
and evolving policy
needs
Increased access to
detailed statistics to
feed into decision-
making
Not
estimated
Improved
policymaking and
associated reputational
benefits
Reduced
administrative burden
related to coordination
of voluntary data
Improved ability to
meet user needs and
adapt to evolving
policy needs
Increased access to
reliable, detailed and
high-quality statistics
Not
estimat
ed
Improved
migration policy
at the EU and MS
level
Improved access
to open data and
evidence
(including
accurate media
reporting)
Increased access
to comparable,
reliable migration
data across the EU
and ability to
produce
comparative
analyses
Demog
raphy
One-off
costs
Administrative costs
associated with
deciding on a
national definition
and aligning regional
definitions
Administrative costs
associated with the
3 878 Regulatory costs
related to preparing
and drafting the new
Regulation
Enforcement costs
relating to processes
required to develop
reports on
101 N/a N/a
67
delivery of training
and guidance
implementation of the
Regulation
Recurring
costs
(average
annual)
Compliance costs
associated with
adopting legislation
and monitoring, and
reporting on
compliance with this
legislation
Administrative costs
related to the design
and implementation
of the programme to
collect data
IT equipment costs
Enforcement costs
relating to
monitoring and
reporting on the
feasibility of the use
of definitions as well
as on reference
metadata
8 640 Compliance costs
associated with the
ESSC
Provision of financial
support
Monitoring and
publishing costs
IT equipment costs
165 Provision and
update of data to
national authority
owners
Acceptance of
loss of privacy
N/a
Benefits
Increased staff skills
and greater
ownership over the
data-collection
process
Improved ability to
coordinate with
national authorities
Increased ability to
meet both user needs
and evolving policy
needs
Increased access to
detailed statistics to
feed into decision-
making
Not
estimated
Improved ability to
make informed policy
decisions and
associated reputational
gains
Reduced
administrative burden
related to coordination
of voluntary data
Improved ability to
meet user needs and
adapt to evolving
policy needs
Increased access to
reliable, detailed and
high-quality statistics
Not
estimat
ed
Improved policy
at the EU and MS
level
Improved access
to open data and
evidence
(including
accurate media
reporting)
Increased access
to comparable and
reliable population
data, and ability to
produce
comparative
analyses
68
ANNEX 3: STATISTICAL DATASETS OF EUROPEAN STATISTICS ON POPULATION
PUBLISHED UNDER THE INTERVENTION
1. 2011 EU CENSUS PROGRAMME ................................................................................................... 70
1.1. DATASETS ON PERSONS ............................................................................................................... 70
1.2. DATASETS ON FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS ......................................................................... 73
1.3. DATASETS ON DWELLINGS AND HOUSING ARRANGEMENTS ........................................... 74
2. 2021 EU CENSUS PROGRAMME ................................................................................................... 74
2.1. DATASETS ON PERSONS ............................................................................................................... 74
2.2. DATASETS ON FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS ......................................................................... 77
2.3. DATASETS ON DWELLINGS AND HOUSING ARRANGEMENTS ........................................... 77
3. DEMOGRAPHY, POPULATION STOCK AND BALANCE .......................................................... 78
3.1. MAIN POPULATION INDICATORS............................................................................................... 78
3.2. POPULATION (NATIONAL LEVEL).............................................................................................. 80
3.3. POPULATION (REGIONAL LEVEL) .............................................................................................. 81
3.4. FERTILITY (NATIONAL LEVEL)................................................................................................... 81
3.5. FERTILITY (REGIONAL LEVEL)................................................................................................... 82
3.6. MORTALITY (NATIONAL LEVEL) ............................................................................................... 83
3.7. MORTALITY (REGIONAL LEVEL)................................................................................................ 84
3.8. DEATHS BY WEEK – SPECIAL DATA COLLECTION................................................................ 84
3.9. MARRIAGES ..................................................................................................................................... 85
3.10. DIVORCES......................................................................................................................................... 85
4. OTHER DEMOGRAPHIC DATASETS............................................................................................ 86
4.1. YOUTH POPULATION..................................................................................................................... 86
4.2. DEMOGRAPHY BY TYPOLOGY OF REGION.............................................................................. 86
4.3. DEMOGRAPHY OF CITIES AND FUNCTIONAL URBAN AREAS ............................................ 87
4.4. POPULATION OF CANDIDATE COUNTRIES AND POTENTIAL CANDIDATE
COUNTRIES ...................................................................................................................................... 88
5. INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP.................................................................. 88
5.1. IMMIGRATION (MIGR_IMMI) ....................................................................................................... 88
5.2. EMIGRATION (MIGR_EMI)............................................................................................................ 89
5.3. ACQUISITION AND LOSS OF CITIZENSHIP (MIGR_ACQN) .................................................... 89
69
Abbreviations of legal bases
CR Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 (Census Regulation)
CIR-11 Regulation (EU) No 519/201081
(Census 2011 implementing Regulation)
CIR-21 Regulation (EU) 2017/71282
(Census 2021 implementing Regulation)
DR Regulation (EU) No 1260/2012 (Demography Regulation)
DIR Regulation (EU) No 205/201483
(Demography implementing Regulation)
MR Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 (Migration Regulation)
MIR Regulation (EU) No 351/201084
(Migration implementing Regulation)
81
Commission Regulation (EU) No 519/2010 of 16 June 2010 adopting the programme of the statistical
data and of the metadata for population and housing censuses provided for by Regulation (EC) No
763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 151,
17.6.2010, p. 1).
82
Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/712 of 20 April 2017 establishing the reference year and the
programme of the statistical data and metadata for population and housing censuses provided for by
Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA
relevance) (OJ L 105, 21.4.2017, p. 1).
83
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 205/2014 of 4 March 2014 laying down uniformed
conditions for the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 of the European Parliament and
the Council on European demographic statistics, as regards breakdowns of data, deadlines and data
revisions (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 65, 5.3.2014, p. 10).
84
Commission Regulation (EU) No 351/2010 of 23 April 2010 implementing Regulation (EC) No
862/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on migration and
international protection as regards the definitions of the categories of the groups of country of birth,
groups of country of previous usual residence, groups of country of next usual residence and groups of
citizenship (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 104, 24.4.2010, p. 37).
70
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
1. 2011 EU CENSUS PROGRAMME
1.1. DATASETS ON PERSONS
Groups 1 – 485
Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, household status, current
activity status (low details), place of birth (low details),
citizenship (low details), 5-year age group and
 legal marital status (group 1)
 educational attainment (group 2)
 employment status (group 3)
 locality size (group 4)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 6 – 9 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, family status (high details),
current activity status (low details), place of birth (medium
details), country of citizenship (medium details), 5-year age
group and
 legal marital status (group 6)
 educational attainment (group 7)
 employment status (group 8)
 locality size (group 9)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 10 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, occupation, industry (high
details), current activity status (high details), education and 5-
year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 11 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, status in employment,
occupation, industry (high details), current activity status
(low details), country of citizenship (low details), 5-year age
group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 12 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, size of the locality, status
in employment, place of usual residence one year prior to the
census, current activity status (low details), country of
citizenship (low details), 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 13-14 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, education, current activity
status (low details), country of citizenship (low details), 5-year
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
85
2011 EU census outputs are published as an interactive table builder tool querying these dataset groups at https://ec.europa.eu/CensusHub2.
71
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
age group and:
 occupation (group 13)
 industry (high details) (group 14)
Groups 15-16 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, current activity status (low
details), occupation, industry (high details), 5-year age group
and:
 country/place of birth (medium details) (group 15)
 country of citizenship (medium details) (group 16)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 17 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, current activity status (low
details), place of usual residence one year prior to the census,
occupation, industry (high details), country of citizenship (low
details), 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 18 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, current activity status
(high details), legal marital status, country of citizenship (low
details), 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 19 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by location of place of work, sex, occupation,
industry (high details), education, country of citizenship (low
details), 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 20 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by location of place of work, sex, employment
status, occupation, industry (high details), education, country
of citizenship (low details), 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 21-22 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by location of place of work, sex, occupation,
industry (high details), 5-year age group and:
 country/place of birth (medium details) (group 21)
 country of citizenship (medium details) (group 22)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 23-24 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, location of place of work, sex,
education, country/place of birth (medium details), country of
citizenship (medium details), 5-year age group and:
 occupation (group 23)
 industry (high details) (group 24)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 25 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, year of arrival in the
country since 1980, country/place of birth (medium details),
country of citizenship (medium details), current activity status
(low details), 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 26-27 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by territory of the Member State, sex, current
activity status (low details), year of arrival in the country
since 2000, 5-year age group and:
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
72
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
 country/place of birth (high details) (group 26)
 country of citizenship (high details) (group 27)
Group 28 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by territory of the Member State, sex,
country/place of birth (high details), country of citizenship
(low details), current activity status (low details), 5-year age
group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 29-30 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, year of arrival in the
country since 1980 (5-year interval), occupation, current
activity status (low details), 5-year age group and:
 country/place of birth (medium details) (group 29)
 country of citizenship (medium details) (group 30)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 31-35 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, year of arrival in the
country since 1980 (5-year interval), current activity status
(low details), 5-year age group and:
 industry (high details) (groups 31, 32)
 country of citizenship (medium details) (groups 32, 33,
35)
 employment status (group 33)
 country/place of birth (medium details) (groups 31, 33,
34)
 Education (groups 34, 35)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 36-37 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by territory of the Member State, sex, year of
arrival in the country since 2000, occupation, education,
current activity status (low details), 5-year age group and:
 country/place of birth (medium details) (group 36)
 country of citizenship (medium details) (group 37)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 38-39 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, housing arrangements (low
details), country/place of birth, country of citizenship, place of
usual residence one year prior to the census, 5-year age group
and:
 current activity status (low details) (group 38)
 size of the locality (group 39)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 40 Optional CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, housing arrangements, size
of the locality and 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 42 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, age (single year),
household status (medium details) and family status (high
details)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
73
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
Groups 43-44 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, age (single year), current
activity status and:
 Occupation and industry (high details) (group 43)
 Employment status, education, size of the locality (group
44)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 45 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 region, sex, age (single year),
country/place of birth (medium details) and country of
citizenship (medium details)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 46 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 region, sex, legal marital status, place
of usual residence one year prior to the census, country/place
of birth (medium details), country of citizenship (medium
details) and 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 47 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 region, sex, household status, legal
marital status, country/place of birth (low details) , country of
citizenship (low details) and 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 48 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 region, sex, 5-year age group and
household status (high details)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 50 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 region, sex, family status (low details),
legal marital status, country/place of birth (low details),
country of citizenship (low details) and 5-year age group
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 51 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 region, sex, 5-year age group and
family status (high details)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 55 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 region, sex and age (single year) n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 56 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 region, sex and 5-year age group n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
1.2. DATASETS ON FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS
Group 52 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Families by NUTS 3 region, type and size of family nucleus
(high detail)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 58 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Families by municipality, type and size of family nucleus (low
detail)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 5 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Private households by NUTS 2 region, type and size (high
detail), and tenure status
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 49 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Private households by NUTS 3 region, type and size (high
detail)
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
74
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
Group 57 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Private households by municipality, type and size (low detail) n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
1.3. DATASETS ON DWELLINGS AND HOUSING ARRANGEMENTS
Group 53 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Conventional dwellings by NUTS 3 region, building type,
occupancy status and construction period
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 60 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Conventional dwellings by municipality, building type and
occupancy status
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 41 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Occupied conventional dwellings by NUTS 2 region,
ownership type, number of occupants, building type, size,
density standard, water supply system, toilet and bathing
facilities, and type of heating
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 54 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Occupied conventional dwellings by NUTS 3 region, building
type, size, density standard and number of occupants
n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 59 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-11 Annex I
Living quarters by municipality and type n/a By 31 March 2014 (27 months after
census reference year)
2. 2021 EU CENSUS PROGRAMME
2.1. DATASETS ON PERSONS
Group 186
Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by territory of the Member State sex, age (single
year), legal marital status (high details), household status
(high details) and family status (high details)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 2 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 regions, sex, 5-year age group, legal
marital status (low details), household status (high details),
family status (high details), housing arrangements, size of the
locality
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 3 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by LAU 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group,
household status (medium details), legal marital status (low
details)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 4 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, age (single year), current n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
86
2021 EU census outputs will be published on an updated CensusHub version, similar to 2011 outputs (see footnote 4).
75
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
CIR-21 Annex I activity status (high details), occupation, education census reference year)
Group 5 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group,
occupation, industry (low details), status in employment,
education
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 6 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group, location
of place of work, occupation, industry (low details), status in
employment, education
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 7 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by territory of the Member State, sex, 5-year age
group, location of place of work, industry (low details), status
in employment
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 8 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by LAU 2 regions, sex, country of citizenship (low
details), country/place of birth (low details)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 9 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 regions, sex, 5-year age group, country
of citizenship (low details), country/place of birth (high
details), year of arrival in the country since 1980 (single year)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 10 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 regions, sex, 5-year age group, current
activity status (low details), country of citizenship (low
details), country/place of birth (low details), year of arrival in
the country since 2000
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 11 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 regions, sex, 5-year age group, country
of citizenship (high details), year of arrival in the country
since 1980 (low details)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 12-13 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 regions, sex, 5-year age group, country
of citizenship (medium details), country/place of birth
(medium details), place of usual residence one year prior to
the census and:
- year of arrival in the country since 1980 (low details),
employment status (group 12)
- year of arrival in the country since 1980 (high details),
housing arrangements (group 13)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 14 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group, current
activity status (high details), country of citizenship (low
details), country/place of birth (low details), year of arrival in
the country since 1980 (low details), place of usual residence
one year prior to the census, housing arrangements
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 15 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group, current
activity status (low details), education, country of citizenship
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
76
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
(low details), country/place of birth (low details), year of
arrival in the country since 1980 (single year)
Group 16 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group,
occupation, country of citizenship (low details), country/place
of birth (low details), year of arrival in the country since 1980
(low details), place of usual residence one year prior to the
census
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 17 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group,
industry (high details), country of citizenship (low details),
year of arrival in the country since 1980 (low details), place of
usual residence one year prior to the census
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 18 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, industry (high details),
status in employment, education, country of citizenship (low
details), country/place of birth (low details)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 19-20 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group,
country/place of birth (low details) and:
- education, year of arrival in the country since 1980 (low
details) (group 19)
- country of citizenship (low details), location of place of
work (group 20)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 21 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group, legal
marital status (low details), family status (medium details),
household status (high detail), current activity status (high
detail), education
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 22 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group,
household status (high detail), education, status in
employment
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 23-24 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group, family
status (low details), current activity status (low detail) and:
- Household status (low details), education (group 23)
- Legal marital status (low detail), household status
(medium details) (group 24)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 25-26 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 regions, sex, 5-year age group,
household status (medium details), country of citizenship (low
details), country/place of birth (low details) and:
- Legal marital status (low details) (group 25)
- Family status (low details) (group 26)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
77
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
Groups 27-28 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 3 regions, sex, family status (medium
details), household status (medium details) and:
- 15-year age group, year of arrival in the country since
1980 (low details) (group 27)
- 5-year age group, place of usual residence one year prior
to the census (group 28)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 29-30 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group, legal
marital status (low details), family status (low details),
household status (medium details), current activity status (low
details) and:
- Country/place of birth (low details) (group 29)
- Country of citizenship (low details) (group 30)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Groups 31-32 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Population by NUTS 2 regions, sex, 5-year age group, family
status (low details), household status, status in employment,
education and:
- Country/place of birth (low details) (group 31)
- Country of citizenship (low details) (group 32)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
2.2. DATASETS ON FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS
Group 34 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Families by NUTS 3 region, type and size of family nucleus
(high details)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 36 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Families by municipality, type and size of family nucleus (low
details)
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 33 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Private households by NUTS 3 region, type, size and tenure
status
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 35 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Private households by municipality, type and size n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
2.3. DATASETS ON DWELLINGS AND HOUSING ARRANGEMENTS
Group 37 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Conventional dwellings by NUTS 3 region, building type,
occupancy status and construction period
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 38 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Conventional dwellings by municipality, building type and
occupancy status
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 39 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Occupied conventional dwellings by NUTS 3 region, building
type, size, density standard, ownership type and number of
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
78
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
occupants
Group 40 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Occupied conventional dwellings by NUTS 2 region, water
supply system, toilet and bathing facilities, and type of heating
n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
Group 41 Mandatory CR Art. 5(3) impl. by
CIR-21 Annex I
Living quarters by municipality and type n/a By 31 March 2024 (27 months after
census reference year)
3. DEMOGRAPHY, POPULATION STOCK AND BALANCE
3.1. MAIN POPULATION INDICATORS
demo_gind Mandatory
and indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
DR Art. 3 impl. by
DIR Art. 4(1-2)
Population change - Demographic balance and crude rates at
national level
Population on 1 January – total and by sex
Average population – total and by sex
Population as a percentage of EU population
Total population change
Natural change of population
Live births – total and by sex
Deaths – total and by sex
Net migration plus statistical adjustment
Sum of births and deaths (natural turnover)
Sum of immigration and emigration plus statistical adjustment
(migration turnover plus statistical adjustment)
Sum of population changes (population turnover)
Crude rate of total population change
Crude birth rate
Crude death rate
Crude rate of natural change of population
Crude rate of net migration plus statistical adjustment
Crude rate of sum of births and deaths (crude rate of natural
turnover)
Crude rate of sum of population changes (crude rate of population
turnover)
Crude rate of the sum of immigration and emigration plus
statistical adjustment (Crude Rate of migration turnover plus
statistical adjustment)
1960 Twice per year (February/March and
July) and in case of data updates by the
countries
79
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
demo_r_gind3 Mandatory
and indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
DR Art. 3 impl. by
DIR Art. 4(2)
Population change - Demographic balance and crude rates at
regional level (NUTS 3)
Population on 1 January - total
Live births - total
Deaths - total
Total population change
Natural change of population
Net migration plus statistical adjustment
Crude birth rate
Crude death rate
Crude rate of total population change
Crude rate of natural change of population
Crude rate of net migration plus statistical adjustment
2000 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_pjanind Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Population structure indicators at national level
Proportion of population by age groups
Median age of population – total and by sex
Age dependency ratio - variants
Old-age dependency ration - variants
Young-age dependency ratio
Women per 100 men
1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_pjanind2 Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Population structure indicators by NUTS 2 region
Proportion of population by age class
Median age of population – total and by sex
Age dependency ratio – variants
Old-age dependency ratio - variants
Young-age dependency ratio - variants
Women per 100 men
1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_pjanind3 Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Population structure indicators by NUTS 3 region
Proportion of population by age class
Median age of population – total and by sex
Age dependency ratio – variants
Old-age dependency ratio - variants
Young-age dependency ratio - variants
Women per 100 men
2014 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_d3dens Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Population density by NUTS 3 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
80
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
demo_r_d3area Voluntary - Area by NUTS 3 region 1990 Annual
3.2. POPULATION (NATIONAL LEVEL)
demo_pjan Mandatory DR Art. 3(1) impl. by
DIR Art. 4(2)
Population on 1 January by age and sex 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_pjangroup Mandatory DR Art. 3(1) impl. by
DIR Art. 4(2)
Population on 1 January by age group and sex 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_pjanbroad Mandatory DR Art. 3(1) impl. by
DIR Art. 4(2)
Population on 1 January by broad age group and sex 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_pjanedu Voluntary - Population on 1 January by age, sex and educational
attainment level
2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_pjanmarsta Voluntary - Population on 1 January by age, sex and legal marital status 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop2ctz Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c)(i) Population on 1 January by age, sex and broad group of
citizenship
1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop1ctz Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c)(i) Population on 1 January by age group, sex and citizenship 1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop3ctb Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c)(ii) Population on 1 January by age group, sex and country of
birth
1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop4ctb Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c)(ii) Population on 1 January by age, sex and broad group of
country of birth
1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop5ctz Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c) Population on 1 January by sex, citizenship and broad group
of country of birth
2009 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop6ctb Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c) Population on 1 January by sex, country of birth and broad
group of citizenship
2009 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop7ctz Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c)(i) Population on 1 January by age group, sex and level of human
development of the country of citizenship
2014 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop8ctb Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c)(ii) Population on 1 January by age group, sex and level of human
development of the country of birth
2014 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_pop9ctz Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(c)(i) EU and EFTA citizens who are usual residents in another
EU/EFTA country as of 1 January
2016 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_urespop Mandatory DR Art. 4(1) Usually resident population on 1 January 2014 Once per year (October); no updates are
done
81
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
3.3. POPULATION (REGIONAL LEVEL)
demo_r_d2jan Mandatory DR Art. 3(1) impl. by
DIR Art. 4(2)
Population on 1 January by age, sex and NUTS 2 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_pjangroup Mandatory DR Art. 3(1) impl. by
DIR Art. 4(2)
Population on 1 January by age group, sex and NUTS 2
region
1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_pjangrp3 Mandatory DR Art. 3(1) impl. by
DIR Art. 4(2)
Population on 1 January by age group, sex and NUTS 3
region
2014 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_pjanaggr3 Mandatory DR Art. 3(1) impl. by
DIR Art. 4(2)
Population on 1 January by broad age group, sex and NUTS 3
region
1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
3.4. FERTILITY (NATIONAL LEVEL)
demo_find Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Fertility indicators
Total fertility rate
Median age of women at childbirth
Mean age of women at childbirth
Mean age of women at birth of first and higher order child
Percentage first and higher order live births
Proportion of live births outside marriage
1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_frate Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Fertility rates by age 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fmonth Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(a) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2-3)
Live births (total) by month 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fasec Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(a) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Live births by mother's age and newborn's sex 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fordagec Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(a) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Live births by mother's age and birth order 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fordager Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(a) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Live births by mother's year of birth (age reached) and birth
order
1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fagec Voluntary - Live births by mother's age and legal marital status 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fager Voluntary - Live births by mother's year of birth (age reached) and legal
marital status
1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_faeduc Voluntary - Live births by mother's age and educational attainment level 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
82
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
case of data updates by the countries
demo_faemplc Voluntary - Live births by mother's age and activity status 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_faczc Mandatory - Live births by mother's age and citizenship 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_facbc Mandatory - Live births by mother's age and country of birth 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fweight Voluntary - Live births by birth weight and duration of gestation 2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fabortind Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Abortion indicators
Abortion rate and ratio
2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fabort Voluntary - Legally induced abortions by mother's age 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_fabortord Voluntary - Legally induced abortions by mother's age and number of
previous live births
2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
3.5. FERTILITY (REGIONAL LEVEL)
demo_r_find2 Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Fertility indicators by NUTS 2 region
Total fertility rate
Mean age of women at childbirth
Median age of women at childbirth
1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_find3 Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Fertility indicators by NUTS 3 region
Total fertility rate
Mean age of women at childbirth
Median age of women at childbirth
2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_frate2 Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Fertility rates by age and NUTS 2 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_fagec Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(a) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Live births by mother's age and NUTS 2 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_births Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(a) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Live births (total) by NUTS 3 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_fagec3 Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(a) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Live births by age group of the mothers and NUTS 3 region 2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
83
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
3.6. MORTALITY (NATIONAL LEVEL)
demo_mexrt Voluntary - Excess mortality by month 2020M1 Monthly
demo_mlifetable Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Life table by age and sex
Age specific death rate
Life expectancy at given exact age
Probability of dying between exact ages
Probability of surviving between exact ages
Person-years lived between exact age
Number left alive at given exact age
Total person-years lived above given exact age
1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_mlexpec Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Life expectancy by age and sex 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_mlexpecedu Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Life expectancy by age, sex and educational attainment level 2007 Irregular
demo_mmonth Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2-3)
Deaths (total) by month 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_magec Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Deaths by age and sex 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_mager Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Deaths by year of birth (age reached) and sex 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_maeduc Voluntary - Deaths by age, sex and educational attainment level 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_marstac Voluntary - Deaths by age, sex and legal marital status 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_maczc Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Deaths by age, sex and citizenship 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_macbc Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Deaths by age, sex and country of birth 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_minfind Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Infant mortality rates 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_minf Voluntary - Infant mortality 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
84
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
demo_minfs Voluntary - Infant mortality by age and sex 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_minfedu Voluntary - Infant mortality by mother's educational attainment level
(ISCED11f) and father's educational attainment level
(ISCED11)
2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_mfoet Voluntary - Late foetal deaths by mother's age 2007 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
3.7. MORTALITY (REGIONAL LEVEL)
demo_r_mlife Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Life table by age, sex and NUTS 2 region
Age specific death rate
Life expectancy at given exact age
Number dying between exact ages
Probability of dying between exact ages
Probability of surviving between exact ages
Person-years lived between exact age
Number left alive at given exact age
Total person-years lived above given exact age
1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_mlifexp Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Life expectancy by age, sex and NUTS 2 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_magec Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Deaths by age, sex and NUTS 2 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_deaths Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Deaths (total) by NUTS 3 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_magec3 Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Deaths by age group, sex and NUTS 3 region 2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_minfind Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Infant mortality rates by NUTS 2 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_r_minf Mandatory DR Art. 3(2)(b) impl.
by DIR Art. 4(2)
Infant mortality by NUTS 2 region 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
3.8. DEATHS BY WEEK – SPECIAL DATA COLLECTION
demo_r_mwk_ts Voluntary - Deaths by week and sex 2000W2 Continuous
85
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
demo_r_mwk_20 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex and 20-year age group 2000W1 Continuous
demo_r_mwk_10 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex and 10-year age group 2000W2 Continuous
demo_r_mwk_05 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex and 5-year age group 2000W1 Continuous
demo_r_mwk2_ts Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex and NUTS 2 region 2000W1 Continuous
demo_r_mwk2_20 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex, 20-year age group and NUTS 2 region 2000W1 Continuous
demo_r_mwk2_10 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex, 10-year age group and NUTS 2 region 2000W1 Continuous
demo_r_mwk2_05 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex, 5-year age group and NUTS 2 region 2000W1 Continuous
demo_r_mwk3_t Voluntary - Deaths by week and NUTS 3 region 2000W6 Continuous
demo_r_mwk3_ts Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex and NUTS 3 region 2000W1 Continuous
demo_r_mwk3_20 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex, 20-year age group and NUTS 3 region 2000W5 Continuous
demo_r_mwk3_10 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex, 10-year age group and NUTS 3 region 2000W1 Continuous
demo_r_mweek3 Voluntary - Deaths by week, sex, 5-year age group and NUTS 3 region 2000W4 Continuous
3.9. MARRIAGES
demo_nind Voluntary and
indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- Marriage indicators
Marriages
Crude marriage rate
Mean age at first marriage – males and females
Total first marriage rate – males and females
Proportion of first marriages – males and females
1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_nmsta Voluntary - Marriages by sex and previous marital status 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_nmsta2 Voluntary - Marriages by previous legal union status of bride and groom 2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_nsinagec Voluntary - First-time marrying persons by age and sex 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_nsinrt Indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
- First marriage rates by age and sex 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_marcz Voluntary - Marriages by citizenship of bride and groom 2012 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_marcb Voluntary - Marriages by country of birth of bride and groom 2012 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
3.10. DIVORCES
demo_ndivind Voluntary and - Divorce indicators 1960 Once per year (February/March) and in
86
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
indicators
calculated by
Eurostat
Divorces
Crude divorce rate
Divorces per 100 marriages
case of data updates by the countries
demo_ndivdur Voluntary - Divorces by duration of marriage (reached during the year) 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_divcz Voluntary - Divorces by citizenship of wife and husband 2012 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
demo_divcb Voluntary - Divorces by country of birth of wife and husband 2012 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
4. OTHER DEMOGRAPHIC DATASETS
4.1. YOUTH POPULATION
yth_demo_010 Derived
dataset
n/a Child and youth population on 1 January by sex and age 2008 Annual
yth_demo_020 Derived
dataset
n/a Ratio of children and young people in the total population on
1 January by sex and age
2009 Annual
yth_demo_060 Derived
dataset
n/a Youth population on 1 January by sex, age and country of
birth
1998 Annual
4.2. DEMOGRAPHY BY TYPOLOGY OF REGION
met_pjangrp3 Derived
dataset
n/a Population on 1 January by five year age group, sex and
metropolitan regions
2014 Annual
met_pjanaggr3 Derived
dataset
n/a Population on 1 January by broad age group, sex and
metropolitan regions
1990 Annual
met_gind3 Derived
dataset
n/a Demographic balance and crude rates by metropolitan
regions
2000 Annual
met_births Derived
dataset
n/a Live births (total) by metropolitan regions 1990 Annual
met_deaths Derived
dataset
n/a Deaths (total) by metropolitan regions 1990 Annual
met_d3dens Derived
dataset
n/a Population density by metropolitan regions 1990 Annual
87
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
met_d3area Derived
dataset
n/a Area of the regions by metropolitan regions 1990 Annual
urt_pjangrp3 Derived
dataset
n/a Population on 1 January by five year age group, sex and other
typologies
2014 Annual
urt_pjanaggr3 Derived
dataset
n/a Population on 1 January by broad age group, sex and other
typologies
1990 Annual
urt_gind3 Derived
dataset
n/a Demographic balance and crude rates by other typologies 2000 Annual
urt_births Derived
dataset
n/a Live births (total) by other typologies 1990 Annual
urt_deaths Derived
dataset
n/a Deaths (total) by other typologies 1990 Annual
urt_d3dens Derived
dataset
n/a Population density by other typologies 1990 Annual
urt_d3area Derived
dataset
n/a Area of the regions by other typologies 1990 Annual
4.3. DEMOGRAPHY OF CITIES AND FUNCTIONAL URBAN AREAS
urb_cpop1 Derived
dataset
n/a Population on 1 January by age groups and sex - cities and
greater cities
1989 Annual
urb_cpopstr Derived
dataset
n/a Population structure - cities and greater 1989 Annual
urb_cpopcb Derived
dataset
n/a Population by citizenship and country of birth - cities and
greater cities
1990 Annual
urb_cfermo Derived
dataset
n/a Fertility and mortality - cities and greater cities 1990 Annual
urb_lpop1 Derived
dataset
n/a Population on 1 January by age groups and sex - functional
urban areas
1989 Annual
urb_lpopstr Derived
dataset
n/a Population structure - functional urban areas 1989 Annual
urb_lpopcb Derived
dataset
n/a Population by citizenship and country of birth - functional
urban areas
1990 Annual
urb_lfermor Derived
dataset
n/a Fertility and mortality - functional urban areas 1990 Annual
urb_cpopcb Derived
dataset
n/a Population by citizenship and country of birth - cities and
greater cities
1990 Annual
88
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
urb_lpopcb Derived
dataset
n/a Population by citizenship and country of birth - functional
urban areas
1990 Annual
4.4. POPULATION OF CANDIDATE COUNTRIES AND POTENTIAL CANDIDATE COUNTRIES
cpc_psdemo Voluntary n/a Candidate countries and potential candidates: population –
demography
2000 Annual
5. INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP
5.1. IMMIGRATION (MIGR_IMMI)
migr_imm8 Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(a) Immigration by age and sex 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm1ctz Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(a)(i) Immigration by age group, sex and citizenship 1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm3ctb Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(a)(ii) Immigration by age group, sex and country of birth 2008 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm2ctz Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(a)(i)
impl. by MIR
Annex 1.1
Immigration by age, sex and broad group of citizenship 1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm4ctb Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(a)(ii)
impl. by MIR
Annex 1.2
Immigration by age, sex and broad group of country of birth 2008 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm6ctz Voluntary - Immigration by sex, citizenship and broad group of country
of birth
2008 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm7ctb Voluntary - Immigration by sex, country of birth and broad group of
citizenship
2008 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm5prv Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(a)(iii)
impl. by MIR
Annex 1.3
Immigration by age group, sex and country of previous
residence
1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm9ctz Mandatory MR Art. 3(1)(a)(i)
impl. by MIR
Annex 2
Immigration by age group, sex and level of human
development of the country of citizenship
2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm10ctb Mandatory MR Art. 3(1)(a)(ii)
impl. by MIR
Immigration by age group, sex and level of human
development of the country of birth
2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
89
Dataset Type of data
collection
Legal basis Description Time series
since
Publication and updates
Annex 2
migr_imm11prv Mandatory MR Art. 3(1)(a)(iii)
impl. by MIR
Annex 2
Immigration by age group, sex and level of human
development of the country of previous residence
2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_imm12prv Voluntary - Immigration by broad group of country of previous residence 2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
5.2. EMIGRATION (MIGR_EMI)
migr_emi2 Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(b)(ii-
iii)
Emigration by age and sex 1990 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_emi1ctz Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(b)(i)
impl. by MIR
Annex 1.1
Emigration by age group, sex and citizenship 2008 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_emi4ctb Voluntary - Emigration by age group, sex and country of birth 2008 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_emi3nxt Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(b)(iv)
impl. by MIR
Annex 1.4
Emigration by age group, sex and country of next usual
residence
1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_emi5nxt Voluntary - Emigration by broad group of country of next usual residence 2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
5.3. ACQUISITION AND LOSS OF CITIZENSHIP (MIGR_ACQN)
migr_acqs Mandatory MR Art. 3(1)(d) Residents who acquired citizenship as a share of resident non-
citizens by former citizenship and sex
2009 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_acq Partly
mandatory
MR Art. 3(1)(d) Acquisition of citizenship by age group, sex and former
citizenship
1998 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_acq1ctz Mandatory MR Art. 3(1)(d) Acquisition of citizenship by age group, sex and level of
human development of former citizenship
2013 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
migr_lct Voluntary - Loss of citizenship by sex and new citizenship 2008 Once per year (February/March) and in
case of data updates by the countries
90
ANNEX 4: COMPLETE EVALUATION FRAMEWORK
Evaluation criterion Evaluation question Indicator
Indicator results Information source(s)
Baseline Target Current Statistics
Legal bases,
metadata, other
documentation
NSI
survey OPC
Contract
study
Relevance (objectives
vs problem/needs) -
pre-2005 situation
RI1
To what extent do
statistical objectives and
outputs correspond to the
needs for evidence-based
EU policymaking?
RI1.1
Share of initial EU use cases
addressed by domain-specific
datasets
29% 100% 100% X
RI2
To what extent do
statistical objectives and
outputs serve
institutional needs for
the functioning of the
EU?
RI2.1
Suitability of the usual-residence
definition based on a twelve-month
rule vis-à-vis EU use cases
Poor Optimal Barely s. X
RI2.2
Sensitivity of population quotas in
Council voting to variations of total
population counts used as input
Poor Optimal Decent X X
RI2.3
Utility of population and migration
statistics for population projections
1.5 10 6.5 X
Relevance evolution
(objectives vs evolving
needs) – current
situation
RE1
To what extent do
population statistics
address current policy
needs for detailed,
frequent and harmonised
data on population
aspects, including at the
highest geographic
granularity?
RE1.1
Detail gaps of initial statistical
objectives against current/new policy
needs
Good Good Barely s. X X
RE1.2
Frequency gaps of initial statistical
objectives against current/new policy
needs
Good Good Decent X X
RE1.3
Timeliness gaps of initial statistical
objectives against current/new policy
needs
Good Good Decent X X
RE1.4
Harmonisation gaps of initial
statistical objectives against
current/new policy needs
Decent Good Barely s. X X X
RE1.5
Geographic granularity gaps of initial
statistical objectives against
current/new policy needs
Good Good Barely s. X X
RE2
To what extent are
established statistical
objectives fit to respond
to evolving policy
needs?
RE2.1
Fitness of initial statistical objectives
and legal bases to serve evolving
policy needs
Poor Optimal Barely s. X X
91
RE3
Who are the main
current users of
European statistics on
population and to what
extent do the currently
available European
statistics on population
meet their needs?
RE3.1
Identification of main types of users
of European statistics on population X
RE3.2
Extent to which key users (including
policymakers, public administrators,
researchers, trade unions, students,
civil society representatives, non-
governmental organisations and
citizens) agree that the currently
available European statistics on
population meet their needs (now and
in the future) X
RE3.3 Key users’ views on their needs that
are not currently met X
Effectiveness
(outputs/results/impacts
vs objectives)
EE1
To what extent is the
output of high quality?
EE1.1
Overall quality of mandatory vs
voluntary statistics published
Barely s. Good Good X X X
EE1.2 Number of quality issues identified
and non-resolved
Poor Good Decent X
EE2
To what extent do
statistics published under
the intervention serve
EU policymaking?
EE2.1
Share of EU aggregates provided in
datasets (mandatory and voluntary)
42% 100% 84% X
EE2.2
Complete coverage of EU population
characteristics (share of ‘unknown’
in totals of mandatory datasets)
~0.1% 0% ~0.1% X
EE2.3
Complete coverage of EU population
characteristics (share of ‘unknown’
in totals of voluntary datasets)
~0.1% 0% ~0.7% X
EE3
To what extent do
statistics published under
the intervention serve
institutional needs for
the functioning of the
EU?
EE3.1
Accuracy and comparability of total
population at national level delivered
under Demography Regulation
Article 4
17 MS 27 MS 22 MS X X
EE3.2
Overall availability of population
statistics by policy topic
Poor Good Decent X X X
EE4
What are the existing
cooperation
arrangements between
NSIs and national
authorities in charge of
administrative data
sources used for
population statistics?
How effective are those
arrangements?
EE4.1
Legislative arrangements for
cooperation between NSIs and
national authorities in the selected
MS X
EE4.2
Non-legislative/procedural
arrangements for cooperation
between NSIs and national
authorities in the selected MS X
EE4.3 Data producers’ views on the
effectiveness of the existing
X
92
cooperation arrangements and areas
where cooperation could be
streamlined/improved
Efficiency
(outputs/results/impacts
vs inputs)
EI1
To what extent is the
output compliant with
legal requirements?
EI1.1
Number of compliance issues
identified and followed up over the
years
Poor Optimal Good X
EI2
To what extent are
voluntary data
collections required to
cover statistical needs?
EI2.1
Number of voluntary datasets serving
key policy needs, compared to
number of mandatory datasets
100% 0% 50% X X
EI3
How often are
mandatory vs voluntary
datasets accessed by
users?
EI3.1
Access analytics to mandatory and
voluntary datasets, compared to each
other and to other Eurostat datasets
<50k/y >50k/y >100k/y X X
EI4
How efficient are
existing cooperation
arrangements between
NSIs and national
authorities in charge of
administrative data
sources used for
population statistics?
EI4.1
Data producers’ views on the
efficiency of the existing cooperation
arrangements and areas where the
efficiency of existing arrangements
could be improved
X
EI5
What costs do data
producers currently face
to develop European
statistics on population
(i.e. baseline costs)?
EI5.1
Data producers’ views on the main
elements that give rise to costs X
EI5.2
Monetised costs (where possible), or
indicative scale of costs where costs
cannot be monetised X
EI6
What benefits do data
users currently draw
from European statistics
on population (i.e.
baseline benefits)?
EI6.1 Data users’ views on the main
elements that give rise to benefits X
EI6.2
Monetised benefits (where possible),
or indicative scale of benefits where
benefits cannot be monetised X
Coherence – internal
(objectives vs inputs)
CI1
To what extent do legal
bases cover statistical
objectives through
mandatory data
collections?
CI1.1 Number of datasets not covered by
the legal base
45 <45 36 X X
CI2
Is the current legal
framework internally
coherent?
CI2.1
Identification of main inconsistencies
and gaps in the current legal
framework governing European
statistics on population X
93
CI2.2
Experts’ and stakeholders’ views on
the main inconsistencies and gaps X
CI2.3
Number of provisions that are
inconsistent X
CI2.4 Number of legislative gaps identified X
Coherence - external
(objectives vs external
factors)
CE1
To what extent are
population statistics
coherent with related or
depending other
European statistics?
CE1.1
Cross-domain coherence of
international migration vs asylum
and managed-migration statistics
Poor Good Decent X X
CE1.2
Utility of census outputs as sampling
frame for social surveys
Good good Decent X X
CE1.3
Utility of census/demography
statistics for national accounts
Poor Good Decent X X
CE1.4
Cross-domain coherence of
population in demography statistics
and national accounts
<0.2% 0% <0.2% X X
CE1.5 Cross-domain coherence of mortality
with health statistics
<2% 0% <2% X X
CE2
To what extent are EU
concepts and definitions
harmonised with
international practices or
recommendations?
CE2.1
Number of concepts/definitions
deviating between EU and
UNECE/CES over all common
concepts/definitions
X
CE2.2
Coherence between European
population statistics and
EU/international demographic
research activities
X
CE3
Is the current legal
framework coherent with
other EU policy and
legislation, including the
Charter on Fundamental
Rights?
CE3.1
Identification of main inconsistencies
and gaps between the current legal
framework governing European
statistics on population and wider EU
policy and legislation, including the
Charter on Fundamental Rights X
CE3.2 Experts’ and stakeholders’ views on
the main inconsistencies and gaps X
CE3.3 Number of provisions that are
inconsistent X
CE3.4 Number of legislative gaps identified X
EU added value (of EU1 To what extent is
statistical quality
EU1.1 EU-level completeness of mandatory
and voluntary statistics published
Barely s. Optimal Good X X
94
outputs/results/impacts) achieved at EU level?
EU1.2
EU-level comparability of mandatory
and voluntary statistics published
Barely s. Optimal Good X X
EU2
To what extent is
methodological
soundness at EU level
(harmonisation of
definitions and
implementation)
achieved by the
intervention (incl.
harmonisation gap of
population bases)?
EU2.1
Use of definitions (feasibility studies
and case studies) X
EU2.2
Implementation of definitions
(feasibility studies and case studies) X
EU2.3
Economic value (desk research and
case studies -> all stakeholders/by
MS and entire EU, to augment EI7
and EI8) X
EU3
To what extent are the
users satisfied? EU3.1
User opinion on overall quality of
European statistics
Good Optimal Good X X
Statistical quality (of
outputs)
SQ1 Coherence
SQ1.1 Differences in population bases used 18 MS 27 MS 18 MS X X
SQ1.2
Consistency at national level between
total population under DR Art. 4 and
other annual population
17 MS 27 MS 22 MS X
SQ1.3 Differences between aggregates
across population tables
72% 100% 100% X
SQ1.4
Differences between census and
annual population during census
years
N/A 100% 82% X
SQ1.5 Differences between demographic
changes and evolution of stocks
44% 100% 43% X X
SQ2 Comparability
SQ2.1
Differences at national level between
total population under DR Article 4
and other annual population across
MS
N/A 0% <1.6% X X
SQ2.2
Differences between voluntary
bilateral migration flows (country
level asymmetries)
25% 100% 25% X
SQ2.3
Differences between mandatory EU
internal migration flows (EU-level
asymmetry)
13.8% 0% 3.7% X
SQ3 Accuracy
SQ3.1
Relative/absolute uncertainty
(confidence interval) of outputs, as
available in metadata
0 MS 27 MS 0 MS X
SQ3.2 Number/share of suppressed cells in
mandatory statistical outputs
N/A 0 MS 9 MS X
95
SQ3.3
Coverage errors in statistical outputs,
estimated share of target population
if available
0 MS 27 MS ≤ 8 MS X
SQ3.4 Revisions of published statistics N/A <1% 1.4% X X
SQ4 Timeliness
SQ4.1
Development of time lag between
reference date and European statistics
published (EU complete and by MS)
552 days <552 days 397 days X
SQ4.2
Timeliness of EU annual data
compared to national and
international practices for annual data
552 days <552 days 397 days
SQ5 Punctuality SQ5.1
Development of time lag between
agreed/legal deadline and European
statistics published (EU complete and
by MS)
294 days 0 days 31 days X
SQ6 Relevance
SQ6.1
Completeness of mandatory statistics
published
42.6% 100% 98.9% X
SQ6.2
Completeness of voluntary statistics
published
41.2% 100% 58.4% X