New questions will be included in the All-Russian census

“This year we asked a question not only about what languages you speak, but also what languages you use in everyday life”б - said Pavel Smelov, Deputy Head of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), adding that the census sheets are constantly being modernized.

He also indicated that the new questions will assess how small peoples are developing and will help to preserve their culture.

Let us note that questions related to labor migration will also be added to the sheets.

"The population over the past 10 years is much more mobile, new forms of employment have appeared. With the help of additional questions, we are trying to assess how the population gets to work", - Smelov said.

He stressed that thanks to these data, analysts will assess the real labor resources in various regions, as well as the need for social and transport infrastructure.

The wording of questions about education, Smelov noted, has now become clearer.

Another innovation in the census process is the tablets now used by census takers. But it will not be possible to completely abandon paper census forms due to the harsh climate in some Russian regions.

“Our tablets are reliable, good, but do not withstand temperatures below minus 40. There are regions in our country where it is colder in April, so the census takers will go there with census forms”, - said the deputy head of Rosstat.

He suggested that the next All-Russian census could be carried out exclusively in digital format.

“If we see that society is ready to give up personal communication, its increased responsibility will be able to fill everything independently, then we would completely switch to collecting data via the Internet”, - Smelov said.

Let us recall that last year Rosstat promised to conduct the 2020 census using Internet services. A pilot Internet census was first held in 2018, when about 1.2 million questionnaires were received.