KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Jamaica will on August 4, begin the data collection for its Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC) regarded as the country’s most comprehensive source of social data, informing the development and monitoring of national policies and programmes.
“The JSLC is the result of collaboration between the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, and it has been around since 1988. We have over 30 years of rich data to inform our policies and programmes,” said Suzette Johnson, the Director of Policy Research in the Social Policy Planning and Research Division at the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ).
Johnson said that it covers a wide range of areas, ranging from population dynamics, poverty and vulnerability, health and education, social protection, and housing-related matters.
The Director of Field Services at the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN). Philone Mantock said data collection for the survey is expected to start on Monday and continue for four months.
“We have a well-trained complement of field staff in addition to our permanent field staff, which is about 80 persons. We have contracted approximately 100 persons, including interviewers and supervisors, who will be fielding the survey.
“We’re going to a total of 12,000 dwellings across the entire island, covering all parishes. For each dwelling that we go to, the interviewers are assigned specific dwellings and they are to interview one household per dwelling,” Mantock said, re-assuring the public about the legitimacy and professionalism of the field staff.
“Each member of the field team is issued a STATIN ID, so they have that for verification. If you are unsure that they’re a part of the survey, feel free to call our head office … to confirm that they are part of the team,” she said.
The acting Unit Head in the Labour Market and Welfare Statistics Unit at STATIN, Nichole Allen, provided details on the type of data collected and how it is used to measure social progress.
“When an interviewer comes to a household and starts asking questions, the first thing that they’re going to ask is about the members of the household – who lives at the household, what is their age, their sex – so that we can get the demographic statistics that we need to disaggregate the indicators that we collect in the rest of the survey,” Allen said.
The PIOJ has reiterated the importance of participating in the survey, as the social policy is most effective when it is informed by good, credible data, in this case, data from the JSLC.
“It is important that we can engage with the population, and we are so grateful that persons have taken the time to respond and contribute to the survey each year,” Allen said.
“The Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions is critical because the data that you share with us is used to inform the creation of these social policies that we need. Policies that impact the population at every level – children, youth, working class, the elderly – every segment of our population is impacted by the data that you provide for us,” she added.
The JSLC has been held annually, except for Population and Housing Census years (2011 and 2022).
Over the years, household-level data collected through this system have offered critical insights into key aspects of the population’s well-being, such as income, employment, and consumption, alongside social indicators, including education, health, housing conditions, and social protection programmes.
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