Népszámlálás, etnikai adatok és törvényhozás

Translated title of the contribution: Census, ethnic data and legislation

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

Abstract (may include machine translation)


The article gives a short account on the legislation concerning the collection of ethnic data on the Hungarian census of 2011. Examples from countries all over the world show that the otherwise comparable census data differ substantially when it comes to race, and ethnicity. While there are emerging European standards on national censuses, the case of ethnicity seems to remain untouched, left to the discretion of the country (the data on diversity thus remaining diverse). This does not mean, however, that there are no existing standards. The importance of these standards (that are summarized in the article) can be seen if we consider that the very framing of the ethnic question(s) reflect a view on ethnicity> in the country, it is far from being neutral, and can have a large impact on the outcome, and the way people think of themselves as members of ethnic groups. Legislators should therefore provide arguments why they chose that specific method, they should make their motives explicit, making it clear what is the goal of the legislation, and of the data collection. Finally, the paper covers the recent legislative debates on the 2011 census, and concludes that the compliance of the Hungarian regulation remains to be seen: the existing standards require all efforts against undercount—something that happened most notably to the Roma community in earlier censuses.
Translated title of the contributionCensus, ethnic data and legislation
Original languageHungarian
Pages (from-to)524-538
Number of pages15
JournalKisebbségkutatás
Volume19
Issue number4
StatePublished - 2010

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