Finding out about ourselves

Every household in the Island will be legally required to provide various pieces of information about everyone living there that day in the first comprehensive survey of its kind for ten years. A great deal can happen in a decade and it will be interesting to see, when the lengthy process of analysing the data gleaned this weekend has finally been completed, just what the 2011 Census tells us about how Jersey has changed in the economically turbulent years since 2001.

The questions included in the Census this time round are straightforward and uncontentious, covering age and gender, home ownership and occupancy, nationality, marital status, educational qualifications, transport usage and the world of work.

From this miscellany of facts and figures, a demographic picture will be created which will help politicians and civil servants to plan matters of public policy and businesses to make reasonably well informed economic choices for the future.

The great over-arching question which will concern many general observers, however, is simply this: how many people live here?

The almost uninterrupted economic boom which followed Jersey’s liberation in 1945 has been matched by a corresponding increase in immigration, swelling the population decade by decade and placing ever greater strain on resources and the environment.

There cannot be many other places in the world where the population has more or less doubled in the course of one lifetime. When the place in question measures just 45 square miles and is surrounded by water, it is no wonder that immigration and population are such perennially controversial issues, affecting all aspects of Island life.

One of the crucial facts this year’s census results will reveal is how close the current population is already to the landmark figure of 100,000 suggested by the Council of Ministers – quite misguidedly, most of those currently contributing to the figure would say – as being an acceptable number with which the Island can cope.

This notional limit (which can all too easily turn into a target) is valid, we are told, because Jersey needs more people to do the jobs that will provide the tax that will pay for the care of the ageing population, a self-defeating circular argument which sounds suspiciously like a counsel of despair or political sleight of hand, depending on one’s point of view.

Whichever way statisticians, economists and politicians may care to spin it, though, the everyday experience of most Islanders strongly suggests that Jersey is already full.

It follows that the key plan formulated from this year’s census figures should be how, through creative and flexible use of the skills already available, we can achieve a sustainable level of vital economic activity without the steadily rising population graph which Jersey’s successive census counts have been drawing for almost 70 years.