The Department issuing a press release said that three surveys have already commenced i.e. Field work of Income and Expenditure of Households Survey (HIES), Sri Lanka’s labour force Survey (LFS) and Child Activity Survey (CAS).
Field Work of the Sri Lanka Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) will commence from June 2016, the release added.
DCS announced that well-trained DCS staff are now visiting housing units selected for these surveys for data collection. Director General of the Department of Census and Statistics, Dr. Amara Satharasinghe stated that data collected will only be used to compile much needed statistics. Dr. Satharasinghe affirmed that the confidentiality of information provided by respondents will be highly protected, and requested heads of households selected for the survey to support the enumerators of the Department, by providing accurate information and to extend their fullest cooperation to conduct these surveys successfully.
According to DCS, Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (LFS) has been conducted on quarterly basis since 1990. Important statistics such as the labour force, employment and unemployment etc. of Sri Lanka are compiled through data collected from this survey.
Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) is conducted to compute statistics including per capita income, per capita expenditure, poverty and ownership of assets etc. HIES is conducted once in every three years and the last round was conducted in 2012/13.
Information on activities of child population between ages 5 to 17 years are compiled through Child Activity Survey (CAS). Department has previously conducted this survey in 1999 and 2008/2009. This year the DCS is conducting the CAS for the third time. CAS 2016 is conducted with the collaboration of Ministry of Labour Relations and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The Department of Census and Statistics revealed that there are about 5.2 million housing units in Sri Lanka. According to well-tested sampling designs, 25,000 housing units covering the entire country have been selected for data collection. Same housing units have been selected for the LFS and HIES while different samples of housing units have been selected for the CAS and DHS.
DCS further said that field work of the CAS will be conducted from January to April 2016, and HIES and LFS are yearlong surveys conducted throughout 2016. Enumerators will visit at least only once for the CAS and LFS, and enumerators will visit at least three times each of households selected for the HIES.
