Job Discussion Forums

Dragonlady · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 4:38 am Post subject:

deleted

not directly related to TESOL

TheLongWayHome · Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Posts: 1016 Location: San Luis Piojosi

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

I was able to answer 'ninguna' on the religion question as well.

They didn't ask me to count my light bulbs this time round though.

Phil_K · Joined: 25 Jan 2007 Posts: 2041 Location: A World of my Own

I also answered "no religion". Very good census person. I didn't realize before that they are called up like on jury service and are not paid, but only do one days work each, usually in their own part of the city. This guy was very professional, jocular and polite. After answering for "Do�a" Margarita, it was "Y ahora usted, Don Philip", plus a chat about England's chances in the World Cup.

Isla Guapa · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 5:38 pm Post subject:

The young man who came to do the census in my building was very professional and pleasant to talk to. I'm surprised to learn that he was a volunteer!

TeresaLopez · Joined: 18 Apr 2010 Posts: 601 Location: Mexico City

Guy, better add 4 more to your bet, there were here about 10 days ago, and we were counted twice, the reason being that we own two apartments in the same building, one we are living in, and one that is in the process of being remodeled so we can either move into it (it is larger) or rent it out. They asked about who lived there and we explained that it was ours, but that we didn't live in it, didn't matter, two more people. Also, we have household help that lives in what is really a storage room, and they wouldn't count him because it is not an apartment. So with all that, I am wondering how accurate it is. I heard last week that there are 3 million Mexicans living in the US, and a quarter million in Canada. I will toss in 5 pesos that the population comes out to be 120,000, since it seems so many people are being counted twice, as well as people being counted like children who don't even live in Mexico. They only asked about who lived here, ages, religion, and lots more questions about the features of the house that anything. I wonder if there are different questions that are asked depending on your age, I wasn't asked anything about how many pregnancies, etc.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Must be an immense challenge to run a census in Mexico, despite being run by very bright people at Inegi.

Didn't know the census takers were volunteers either...now I pity the poor lad that kept coming by the building, even late on Sundays looking for his elusive quarry.

MotherF · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 7:05 pm Post subject:

We just got counted the day before yesterday.
(I guess it's time to scrape the 2005 sticker off my door)

They are not volunteers in Oaxaca, but very very low paid temp workers, that's based on the ads I saw for census workers several months ago.
I was also not able to answer no religion, I wasn't even allowed to just answer protestant. So I told them I was a Unitarian Universalist.

Dragon lady they asked for your country of birth, didn't they? And they didn't list your children as living there or you would have had to give info about them too--I felt rather silly when they asked for the religion of my 4 month old baby, um he's a baby. And no lastnames were exchanged here in Oaxaca. In fact when they asked for my husbands name I automatically said his full name and the guy stopped me and said, please don't give out your last names.

They gave me a leaflet about information about Oaxaca gathered in 2005. In 2005 70% percent of Oaxacan households had a TV. But only 52% had a refridgerator.

I also learned from a colleague who was researching indigenous identity that I and my children are considered to be indigneous people Exclamation

(take that moonraven!). It seems when tabulating the number of indigenous people in the country, they look at households where the head of the household declared himself to be a speaker of an indigenous language, then they count all the residents in that household--whether or not they speak the language--as part of the indigenous population.

Dragonlady · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2010 10:03 pm Post subject:

deleted

not directly related to TESOL

geaaronson · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 948 Location: Mexico City

I worked as a census taker in Atlanta, Georgia back in 2000 and I can vouch how difficult it is to do it accurately. The greatest problem was with neighborhoods with boarding houses filled with transients. No one living there was sure who were the neighbors, their work schedules or anything else about them. Also in such living accomodations there will be even more transitory transients, those who have lost their apartments or kicked out of their parents abode and are staying with friends.
The other problem was with those who were in trouble with the law. We�re talking jumpers and illegals. People out on bail who never finished the process of reporting to trial and illegal aliens fearful that the census taker would turn them over to immigration.