Asia-Pacific statisticians attend UN training workshop on gender-focused census analysis
Statistics experts from 15 Asia-Pacific nations attended a training session in Chiba, Japan from 9 to 12 May organized by the United Nations regional statistical centre, to improve their knowledge of sex disaggregated data analysis collected through the population and housing census.
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Maldives, Mongolia, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vanuatu and Viet Nam joined the regional workshop on “Gender-focused population and housing census data analysis” organized by the ESCAP Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific (SIAP), in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, with support from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan.
The population and housing censuses conducted in most Asia-Pacific countries every five to ten years are a rich source of information to measure progress in gender equality, allowing measurement of changes in areas such as family formation, occupation, type of employment, school attendance, literacy, disability, migration and access to water and sanitation. Most data can be analysed by each individual's sex, age, geographic location, level of education and employment status.
The workshop provided knowledge and skills on analyzing population and housing census data from a gender perspective, in order to produce and disseminate coherent and quality sex-disaggregated data and analyses.
While publishing sex-disaggregated data is an essential component of gender statistics, statisticians also need an understanding of gender equality priorities and issues for meaningful analysis. Emphasis was given to a gender-based analysis of census data by subpopulation groups such as the elderly and disabled.