4.10 Population Census of 1950 in compliance with UN recommendations

After the Second World War it again became topical to take a census of the population by means of information collected direct from people. The United Nations had been active in drawing up international recommendations and it issued recommendations on the information to be gathered for the 1950 Population Census. The information collected in the Finnish Population Census 1950 was partly based on this recommendation.

The first direct collection of information for a population census was conducted with the help of special census takers who distributed the census questionnaire forms to the heads of each household to be filled in three days before the time the census was to be taken. After the turn of the year the census takers collected the questionnaires - though in several places they had to fill them in first.

In addition to age, gender and marital status, the 1950 Population Census collected information about the population by domicile, language, place of birth, religious group, nationality, education, means of livelihood, occupation, status in employment and employer type as well as different types of information about the structure of families and households. Information was also gathered on housing.

Special attention was given to the availability of regional level information. Previously the municipality was the smallest regional unit in the population statistics but the information was collected by locality in the 1950 Census. In this way information was obtained separately for statistics on sparsely populated and semi-urban areas. It was already then realised how useful such information would be in municipal level planning.