The Household Registration System: Methods and Issues in Collecting Continuous Data on Demographic Events

This paper describes a unique demographic surveillance system in Nepal where migrants are tracked outside the study area and data on various demographic behaviors are collected from them. The process for collecting registry data, the procedures implemented to follow migrant individuals and households and basic demographic research results are discussed. Of the 8,878 people who resided in the study neighborhoods when the registry system began, 27 percent eventually migrated outside the study area neighborhoods within 30 months. Of the total registry population in July 1999, more than one-third were residing outside of the study area neighborhoods, 55 percent of these out-migrants were still residing within Chitwan district and 45 percent resided in other districts in Nepal or other countries. The importance of understanding changes in the timing and sequencing of demographic events makes attention to migration a necessary facet of demographic data collection.