Friday, October 5, 2018

2016 Census Availability

Question:
I’m looking for Census data but I completely confused by the EFT, and I have no clue what’s actually available at this time. Here is my researcher’s request:

I also need the Census Data (short+long form) for 2016, if possible for all four levels (i.e. FSA (FSA), Census Tract (CT), Census Subdivision (CSD) and Dissemination Areas (DA)).

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Answer:
Assuming that the researcher isn't looking for a PUMF or to create cross-tabulations, you can download this data fairly easily from Stat Can's website:

  • Go to the census profile for 2016.
  • Click on "Download Census Profile data".
  • You can download all the data for a given level of geography in CSV (Excel compatible) format, or TAB or XML (anyone here ever use these?), or IVT (Beyond 20/20).

If it's a researcher that will do a lot of work with census data, I recommend they use Beyond 20/20 to shape the data the way they need, and then export right back into an Excel compatible format. I have a slightly outdated slides/screen recording of Beyond 20/20 at the top of my tutorials page (I use a CANSIM table to illustrate Beyond 20/20 functions, which is no longer possible), a longer slide deck (also using a CANSIM table as an example), and a fairly up to date exercise using a census example.