Gunnar Thorvaldsen

The North Atlantic Population Project An Overview

Abstract The North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP) brings together complete-count census data from late-nineteenth-century Canada, Great Britain, Iceland, Norway, and the United States into a single harmonized database. When released in 2005, the final version of the database will include the records of nearly 90 million people. The project will consistently code all variables across the different countries, while still retaining important national variation in census questions and responses. The authors provide a brief history of the project, discuss the main issues involved in creating a harmonized international census database, and outline the methodological and research opportunities the completed database will provide for scholars.

Infant Mortality in the Nordic Countries 1780-1930

This article summarizes aspects of the decline in infant mortality in the five Nordic countries. During the nineteenth century, both the levels of infant mortality and its development differed among the Nordic countries. At an early date, Denmark, Norway and Sweden stood out as the countries with the lowest levels in Europe whereas levels of infant mortality in Iceland and Finland were comparatively high. Within the countries there were large regional differences that often crossed national borders. Artificial feeding characterized most of the areas with the highest infant mortality. Within the different countries the high infant mortality came to be seen as a problem during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The spread of information, midwives as agents of change and high literacy are factors that have been proven important in explaining the subsequent decline.

Occupational classification in the North Atlantic Population Project

Abstract The North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP) is a complete-count data set of late-nineteenth-century censuses from Canada, Great Britain, Iceland, Norway, and the United States. One of the projects most challenging tasks is the coding and classification of 2 million distinct responses to occupational questions. Using the Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO) as the basis for their classification scheme, the authors have adapted it to address particular problems applicable to the NAPP occupational data—the inconsistent specification of tasks, industry, and employment status by census respondents; variation among the NAPP countries in the level of occupational detail provided; and spatial and temporal variation in the language used to describe occupations. Compared with HISCOs classification scheme, the NAPP system reduces the overall number of codes, introduces new codes, and retains more detail from vaguely specified occupations.

Away on Census Day Enumerating the Temporarily Present or Absent

Abstract. The author discusses how census authorities have dealt with persons who were not at home on census day. In principle, the population could be enumerated either de facto (at the place where a person was present) or de jure (at the persons usual residence). In practice, some combination of the two methods has always been used. The author summarizes the census instructions for the late nineteenth century in the United States, France, and Great Britain, countries that used different enumeration techniques to handle the problems posed by the absence of persons on census day. The author then uses the 1900 census for Norway to describe the temporary residents more fully. This description is possible because the 1900 Norwegian census fully combined both the de facto and the de jure enumeration methods by separately counting individuals temporarily present and those temporarily living away from their more permanent address. The analysis of this census is facilitated because it is the only fully digitized national census implementing the combined enumeration methods. Finally, the author discusses the kinds of bias that may be introduced when analyses are made of censuses that employ different enumeration principles over time and in different countries.

Family planning knowledge and current use of contraception among the Mru indigenous women in Bangladesh: a multivariate analysis

Background: This article aims to understand the family planning (FP) knowledge and current use of contraception and its predictors among women of the Mru people -the most underprivileged indigenous community in Bangladesh. Methods: In this study 374 currently married Mru women were interviewed and selected purposively from three upazilas (administrative subdistricts) of the Bandarban area where most of the Mru people live. The association between the variables was assessed in bivariate analysis using the Chi-square test and binary logistic regression models were employed to explore the predictors of FP knowledge and current use of contraception among the Mru women. Results: Only about 40% of respondents had ever heard FP messages or about FP methods -two-fifths of the national figure (99.9%). The current use of contraception was much lower (25.1%) among the Mru people than at the national level (55.8%). Among both modern and traditional methods the contraceptive pill ranked first. About two-thirds (66.0%) of married women used this method -more than two times than the national figure (28.5%). On the other hand the prevalence of male methods was comparatively lower than at the national level. Logistic regression models revealed that place of residence religion age school attendance husbands school attendance service provided in the community distance to the service center and exposure to mass media had significant effects on knowledge of FP and on use of contraception. Conclusion: Education for mothers and vernacular language-based doorstep FP programs with special emphasis on awareness are suggested for the community.

The encoding of highly structured historical sources

This article first briefly discusses the use of the computer in three fields of historical research in Norway: text retrieval in medieval documents, roll call analysis, and the study of social history and historical demography. The treatment of highly structured source material like censuses is then explored more fully, especially the coding of information about family status, occupation and birth place. In order to standardize this information, historians have developed several coding schemes and sophisticated software for the combined use of the full text and the encoded versions.

Using NAPP Census Data to Construct the Historical Population Register for Norway

Abstract A Historical Population Register (HPR) for Norway for the period 1735–1964 will connect with the national Central Population Register for the period 1964–present. Constructed using a core of North Atlantic Population Project census data, the HPR will be supplemented with other local sources. It will include 9.7 million people, linking them to 37.5 million entries from censuses, church records, and other sources. After briefly recounting the history of population registers in Norway, the author describes the database and how it is being assembled and gives examples and suggestions about what can be done with it.

The Norwegian census: An international and long-term perspective

This article summarizes the history of the Norwegian census, covering more than three centuries, and the work to make computerized versions available for historical and other types of research. A number of problematic questions inherent in the origin and the digitization of census manuscripts are discussed in an international context, particularly how the ethnicity and occupational variables have been dealt with.

Record Linkage in the Historical Population Register for Norway

The Historical Population Register (HPR) of Norway aims to cover the country’s population between 1800 and 1964 when the current Central Population Register (CPR) takes over. This may be feasible due to relatively complete church and other vital registers filling the gaps between the decennial censuses—In 1801 and from 1865 these censuses were nominative. Because of legal reasons with respect to privacy, a restricted access database will be constructed for the period ca. 1920 until 1964. We expect, however, that the software we have developed for automating record linkage in the open period until 1920 will also be applicable in the later period. This chapter focuses on the record linkage between the censuses and the church registers for the period 1800 until around 1920. We give special attention to database structure, the identification of individuals and challenges concerning record linkage. The potentially rich Nordic source material will become optimally accessible once the nominal records are linked in order to describe persons, families and places longitudinally with permanent ids for all persons and source entries. This has required the development of new linkage techniques combining both automatic and manual methods, which have already identified more than a million persons in two or more sources. Local databases show that we may expect linkage rates between two-thirds and 90 % for different periods and parts of the country. From an international perspective, there are no comparable open HPRs with the same countrywide coverage built by linking multiple source types. Thus, the national population registry of Norway will become a unique historical source for the last two centuries, to be used in many different multi-disciplinary research projects.

Three centuries of northern population censuses

The rationale behind this special issue is the improved access of researchers to census materials in northern Europe over the last decades. Social historians, demographers and other researchers can profit from an update on the infrastructure work and utilization of such sources. Given more journal pages, including a similar overview for North America would have been a fruitful addition, but the Canadian and US census projects are easier to follow via the Internet than their corresponding European projects. The geographical delimitation can be problematized within Europe too. Colleagues in Mediterranean countries will rightly protest against any idea that European census history is limited to its northern realm. As is evident from the maps presented in this issue, many censuses harmonized by the Mosaic Project were collected from areas that are not normally thought of as northern. The ‘northern’ in the title of this special issue can be defended, however, not only by the fact that most of the Mosaic materials originated north of the forty-fifth parallel. The template for modern census-taking was created by Adolphe Quetelet in Belgium from the 1830s – which is clearly a country in the northern hemisphere – before his census standards were spread almost globally by the international statistical conferences. The pioneering role of Iceland – the worlds northernmost country by any average measure – will become clear. Already in the eighteenth century, the first full-count census of a whole (present-day) country was taken, as described in the article on the 1703 census by Ólöf Garðarsdóttir. She topically researches the enumeration of the paupers in the census, which was ordered by the Danish administrators to investigate to what extent a recent volcanic eruption had put the livelihood of the whole population at risk. The Danes also took other censuses in Denmark or their whole Kingdom before they topped it with the comprehensive nominative census in 1801–1803 for all of their territory (Solli & Thorvaldsen, 2013). The North German parts from 1803 are included in the Mosaic databases, while the rest are available from electronic archives in Denmark, Iceland and Norway. Thus, Quetelet would have been able to take inspiration and models from a number of northern censuses for his standardized census-taking, in addition to other more or less full-count enumerations organized to raise taxes, conscript soldiers, etc. The 1926–1927 Polar Census, presented and researched by Elena Glavatskaya in her article, must be the most detailed population census ever taken, with its qualitative descriptions of the northern Russian settlements, in addition to statistics collected on people as well as most aspects of their livelihoods (Anderson, 2011). Glavatskayas