THE NATIONAL SYSTEM OF DEMOGRAPHIC STATISTICS
Population structure
Iceland has a very long tradition of population statistics and census-taking. The first census was already held in
1703. This census was analysed according to modern principles in recent decades. There are other early censuses
in 1769, 1801, and 1832. From 1840 onwards censuses were taken regularly every five years and later every ten
years (cf. Kuhnle, 1989 and Thorsteinsson, 1948).
Population by age, sex, and marital status is available since 1850, first in five-year age groups, but since 1901
for each year.
Vital statistics
The record of vital statistics as well as census-taking dates back very early in history. Most vital statistics time
series are covered already since the first half of the eighteenth century.
Households and families
Data on households (heimili) were already collected in the first census of 1703. This census was elaborated later
using modern techniques and research questions. The mere number of households is also available from the
censuses of the early nineteenth century. It was not until 1860 that household statistics were extended concerning
households by size. This distinction was upheld until the time of World War II.
In 1910 the distinction between private households, family households, and institutional households was
introduced.
In 1930 an extension was made by introducing the household composition, which was repeated in 1940. The
following household members were distinguished: household heads, dependent children and parents, servants,
unrelated workers, children under age 14, adults, and lodgers (locataires).
In 1940 households were additionally distinguished by the profession of the household head (household heads
by economic sector).
The definition of a household (heimili) is given by Hagstofa Íslands/Statistics Iceland (1997: 47):
In the censuses of 1910–81 a household is defined as a family, including servants and others boarding in that household.
Lodgers who do not board with the family or the household are counted as separate households. These types of households
are called one-person or lodger households. Institutions supplying accommodation and boarding for people for long periods
of time, such as boarding schools, hospitals, senior citizens’ residential care homes, etc., are also classified as households and
called institutional households. The third group, which includes households of two and more members, is referred to as a
family household. One-person and lodger households and family households are classified together as private households—
as opposed to the institutional ones.
Older censuses are based on the same concept as the more recent ones, i.e. that a household is made up of persons sharing
their meals, although they do not distinguish between household types. This probably leads to fewer one-person households
than would be the case according to the methodology of more recent censuses.
Family-orientated fertility statistics were not gathered before World War II. The same is true for family
statistics such as the structure and composition of the biological family. Such data are available after World War
II period, first from the censuses, but later, after census-taking had been discontinued following the last census of
1960, from the population registers (cf. Hagstofa Íslands/Statistics Iceland, 1997: 141).
Remarks (also see introductory Table 6.1)
In Iceland the last population census was held in 1960 and was subsequently replaced by register statistics. Thus,
the data of the variables v16–v21 have been calculated taking the age*sex*marital status figures for the years
1960, 1974, and 1991 and linearly interpolated between these dates. In Iceland the population censuses of 1840,
1850, 1855, 1860, and 1890 have been used for interpolation of v16–v21.