Travel report – NUFU project between Department of Statistics, University of Dar es Salaam and the Norwegian Historical Data Centre, the University of Tromsø 15-23 January 2007

The purpose of the travel to Dar es Salaam in January 2007 was fourfold:

  1. a) To organize a workshop on the understanding of the IPUMS International census database and the use of its East-African parts. a) To facilitate the inclusion of the 1988 and 2002 censuses for Tanzania in the IPUMS International census database.
  2. To introduce dr stud Hilde Jaastad to the nine theses on regional infant mortality in Tanzania written in the Demographic Training Unit in the 1990s so that she can perform a statistical meta-analysis, and to start cooperation between her and dr cand Ngowi.
  3. To plan for the last year in this NUFU period, the presentation of our results at the NUFU seminar in Bergen in June and for a new NUFU application.

1. Workshop on IPUMS procedures for enhancing census material

The following program was carried through in full, without any glitches with respect to using technicalities such as the Internet or the video projector. There was general agreement that the freely available census data for Kenya, Uganda etc are a most valuable instrument both in the research and teaching at the Department of Statistics in the Social Sciences Faculty at the University of Dar es Salaam. It is absolutely necessary to also include the Tanzanian census samples from 1988 and 2002, and preliminary contacts indicate that a contract about this will be signed by representatives from the National Bureau of Statistics in a few months time. Dr Sobek found it technically realistic to construct an IPUMS version of the Tanzanian 1988 census by the summer 2007 for use in the NUFU project.

Main teacher: was dr Matt Sobek, Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, the leader of the group constructing the IPUMS International database. Dr Sobek is to be complemented for not only being very knowledgable about the IPUMS data series, but also for his pedagogical presentation of the data, their documentation and doing research on them in real time. All elements inspired most lively questions, comments and discussions between the seminar participants, who were grateful for this opportunity to meet one of the world’s leading experts on the data processing of censuses..

Program

20 January

First part::Opening:

Presenting the participants and their institutions.

Contents of the Tanzanian censuses, focusing on 1988. Professor Kamuzora, Department of Statistics..

First Dar-Tromsø project meeting: Status.

Afternoon: Matt Sobek: The IPUMS methodologies, an overview. The US census samples: Harmonizing censuses over time. The strengths and weaknesses of microdata.

The North Atlantic Population Project: Harmonizing historical censuses across countries. Gunnar Thorvaldsen:

21 January:

First part: IPUMS International: Harmonizing post WWII censuses across time and space. Countries, original and constructed variables, principles of design..

Afternoon: Documentation. Disseminating the IPUMS over the web. IPUMS confidentiality measures

Towards the end of day 2, suggestions for research topics that we can research with IPUMS-I material for Kenya on day three.

22 January

Second Dar-Tromsø project meeting: Year 2007. Deliverables. Continuation?

Remaining issues.

Data work in SPSS.

Selected variables were downloaded from the Kenyan 1989 and 1999 census samples, SPSS files were constructed and save, and analyses run concentrating on the gender, education and urban/rural variables and the construction of a poverty measure. The resulting data files as well as the powerpoint presentations given on day one and two are available from the undersigned.

2 Infant mortaltiy

Dr candidate Ngowi will produce the two remaining analytical chapters (five and six) during the spring semester. He will be supervised both by his teachers in Dar and by the north coordinator. The summer and the first part of the autumn semester will then be used for revisions and the writing of the summary. The inclusion of a planned chapter seven depends on the available time left, and may have to be dropped by including some parts in other chapters. Chapter five is to be ready by the end of March. Hilde Jaastad has summarized six theses in the Demographic Training Unit, and is at the time of writing wrestling with the University Library to get access to and copies from three remaining theses. She and Ngowi will frequently send eachother draft parts of their paper viz chapters for mutual commenting. She aims to have a paper ready for the NUFU seminar in early June.

3 Planning for 2007

The five existing papers on the Time Use Study must be revised by the end of February before they will be commented on by an expert referee on the initiative of the north coordinator. After final revisions they will be printed and bound together with an introduction and appendixes in a limited number of copies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, the University of Tromsø. It is aimed for them to be published on the Internet by the University Library in Tromsø. Papers on infant mortality by Ngowi, Jaastad and Thorvaldsen will also be puplished as working papers on the Internet before the NUFU seminar. The first enhanced release of the 1988 census during the summer will facility a more detailed analysis of the Tanzanian population. The coordinators will represent the project at the NUFU seminar in early June, maybe there is also room for Ngowi and Jaastad to be present. If the economy allows it, a seminar in Arusha will be arranged towards the end of 2007 in order to summarize the project and prepare a new NUFU application.

Dar es Salaam / Aberdeen ultimo January 2007

Gunnar Thorvaldsen, North coordinator