An Overview on Historical Development in Population Survey System

우리나라 인구 통계 작성제도의 변천에 관한 고찰

The historical study reveals that our ancestors had maintained a system which could produce data on the number of population and households as well as on their characteristics. For example, such data on age structure of the population, number of births, number of deaths by age & sex, number of in & out migrants were found in an historical document for the year 755. The main purposes of maintaining the system at that time were taxation and conscription. As the system evolves, another function of identifying the legal status of people was also added. Looking into the figures for those days reveals that ommission rates of the number of population and households were high. Thus, in an effort to obtain a reliable data, the annual population survey system was introduced as of 1 September 1896. This date is now cerebrated as the Statistics Day. Since then, the survey system has been diversified. At the present time, there are three major data sources which produce the statistics on population and households: Civil Registration System (vital statistics), Resident Registratiton System (migration statistics) and Population Census. However, these three systems are found to have some problems to produce the accurate data. There are some inherent problems in the registration systems such as problems in its coverage, accuracies in contents and timeliness in reporting the vital events and publishing the results. The population census has also non-sampling errors such as errors in coverage, response and non-response. Apart from the above mentioned problems, there are also conflicting problems arised from having different three data source. We can find some overlapping problems in laws and difficulties in comparative studies between regions. In the future, these problems should be taken into consideration for the improvement of the quality of statistics on population and households.

우리나라에서의 호구통계작성제도는 오래전부터 운영되고 있었다. 현존하는 기록으로는 통일 신라시대의 촌적제도, 고려, 조선시대의 호구성적 등으로부터의 자료에서 찾아볼 수 있다. 당시 이러한 호구성적제도는 순수한 통계작성목적보다는 징병, 요역, 세금부과, 신분유지 등의 목적으로 이루어지게 된것이다. 이러한 호구성적제도로부터 작성된 호구통계는 완전성 및 정확성의 측면에서 다소 호구의 누락등 오차가 있는것으로 추정된다. 따라서 정확한 호구통계파악을 위하여 1896.9.1자로 호구조사 규칙이 제정되었고, 1909년에는 민적법이, 1925년에는 인구센서스가 도입되어 호구통계를 작성할수 있는 제도가 세분되었다. 오늘날 통계의날 기념일을 매년 9월1일로 정한것도 이와같은 근거 때문이다. 이와 같은 제도는 1960년대 초 호적법, 주민등록법의 전면적인 개정으로 정도 높은 호구 통계를 작성하는데까지 이어졌다.