NAMIBIA POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS PUMS 2023
2023 Population and Housing Census PUMS
Namibia, 2023
Get MicrodataIdentification
NAM_NSA_PHC_2023_V01_PUMS
NAMIBIA POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS PUMS 2023
2023 Population and Housing Census PUMS
NPHC_2023
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Namibia | NAM |
Population and Housing Census [hh/popcen]
The 2023 Namibia Population and Housing Census was the forth census conducted after independence, following the previous ones in 1991, 2001 and 2011.
The Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the Namibia 2023 Population and Housing Census provides anonymized individual- and household-level data, enabling users to conduct customized analyses on a wide range of demographic and socio-economic characteristics. The dataset is drawn from a scientifically selected sample of census records, designed to ensure national representativeness while preserving respondent confidentiality.
The PUMS includes information on key variables such as age, sex, marital status, education, economic activity, housing conditions, and household composition, among others. It enables users to explore patterns, relationships, and trends that are not readily available in aggregated census tables. To protect privacy, direct identifiers have been removed and certain data elements modified in accordance with statistical disclosure control standards.
The dataset is intended for use by researchers, policy analysts, students, and other stakeholders interested in evidence-based planning, academic inquiry, and policy development. Users are advised to consult the accompanying metadata and documentation for proper interpretation and responsible use of the data.
Census/enumeration data [cen]
Households and Individual
Version
Version 1.0: Edited, anonymous dataset for public distribution (PUMS, 20% sample)
2025-07-23
Scope
Identification: Constists of region; constituency; urban and rural
Persons: For all persons in the household/ institution demographic characteristics, education, labour force
Household and housing charateristics: Household size; composition; assets; tenure status, material used for the wall, roof and floor; main source of energy; main source of water for cooking and drinking; main toilet facility; main source of income; and own account agricultural activity.
| Topic |
|---|
| Population |
| Demographics |
| Education |
| Information, Communication and Technolohy |
| Labour Force |
| Welfare |
| Housing |
| Material for construction |
| water |
| Sanitation |
Coverage
National Coverage
The sampling universe is defined as all households (private and institutions) from 2023 Census dataset.
Producers and sponsors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Namibia Statistics Agency | Goverment of the Republic of Namibia |
| Name | Abbreviation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Government of the Republic of Namibia | GRN | Funding |
| United Nation Population Fund | UNFPA | Technical Assistance |
| Office of National Statistics of the UK | ONS | Technical Assistance |
| United Nations Economic Commission of Africa | UNECA | Technical Assistance |
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Line Ministries and Private Institutions | provided assistance |
| Field Staff | Fieldword and data collection |
| General Public | Participation in the Census |
Sampling
Sample Design
The stratified random sample was applied on the constituency and urban/rural variables of households list from Namibia 2023 Population and Housing Census for the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) file. The sampling universe is defined as all households (private and institutions) from 2023 Census dataset. Since urban and rural are very important factor in the Namibia situation, it was then decided to take the stratum at the constituency and urban/rural levels. Some constituencies have very lower households in the urban or rural, the office therefore decided for a threshold (low boundary) for sampling within stratum. Based on data analysis, the threshold for stratum of PUMS file is 250 for the 20% sample. Thus, constituency and urban/rural areas with less than 250 households in total were included in the PUMS file. Otherwise, a simple random sampling (SRS) at a 20% sampling rate was applied for each stratum. The sampled households include 151,966 housing units and 606,022 persons for the 20% sample.
Sample Selection
The PUMS sample is selected from households. The PUMS sample of persons in households is selected by keeping all persons in PUMS households. Sample selection process is performed using Census and Survey Processing System.
The smallest geographic unit for PUMS was generated (region + constituency + urban-rural) and a count of households for each one of these geographies was established. A CSPro batch edit was created where two lists of both the geo-unit ids and respective case counts were created (geo-unit id and respective case count maintained the same index within their respective list).
The batch edit was written such that, for every new geo-unit, all cases were kept if the case count (from the list) was below the household count threshold and otherwise sampled depending on the size of the sample i.e. every 5th household for 20% sample.
The 20% sample had a weight which was then calibrated to ensure the estimates conform to the total population for the region and sex. The weight variable is appended to the datasets.
The sample weights were calibrated to align the sample distributions with the full census population totals by region and sex. As a result, estimates produced for this calibrated weight closely match the corresponding census counts.
For all other variables, however, the estimates are subject to sampling variability because they were not included in the calibration process. Consequently, sample-based estimates may differ from the full census counts, and such differences should be interpreted as an expected outcome of the sampling design rather than as errors in the data.
Users are therefore advised that while the sample provides reliable estimates of the population, exact agreement with full census figures should only be expected for the variables used in the calibration process (region and sex).
Survey instrument
The following questionnaire instruments were used for the Namibia 2023 Population and and Housing Census:
Form A : For conventional households
Form B : For institutional Households
Form C: for special population groups such as Polie holding cells, Homeless, travellers, hospital in-patients, hotels and guesthouses, off-shore populations
Data collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2023-09-24 | 2023-10-06 |
- Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]
| Name | Abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Namibia Statistics Agency | NSA |
Regional Census Coordinators: Overseening the 2023 census operations at regional level
Deputy Regional Census Coordinators: Overseening the 2023 census operations at constituency level
Team supervisors: Overseening the 2023 census operations at Enumeration Areas and supervised four to five enumerators.
Quality assurance mechanisms
Comprehensive quality assurance guidelines were developed and shared with all field personnel. Four layers of fi eld supervision, plus a monitoring team, were put in place to ensure adequate facilitation, real-time response to emerging issues, and feedback to Census Office during data collection. Additionally, Census Monitoring dashbpard was inplace during enumeration to facilitate real time monitoring activities.
In addition, since it was CAPI, many control were build in the application to ensure internal constitency of the data.
Data processing
Data entry application was built with many consistency checks, skipping patterns and other validations such as maximum and minimum acceptance range per variable. Supervisors were given minimum variables to check on a day-to-day basis, especially for other - specify (notes) variables. As a result, data consistency checks, coding and validation was done at field level. This minimized the time spent on post data cleaning, validation and editing process. The secondary data cleaning procedures was done using step-by-step instructions developed in CSPRO to verify the structural stability of the published 2023 Census data sets, identify invalid entries and determine the data points that should be subjected to editing or imputation. The above tasks were scripted in CSPRO batch program were created to automate their accomplishments
Data Access
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Namibia Statistics Agency | Government of the republic of Namibia | https://www.nsa.org.na | info@nsa.org.na |
| Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required? | Confidentiality declaration text |
|---|---|
| yes | Confidentiality of respondents is ensured by Statistics Act No.9, 2011, section 44(2) Before being granted access to the dataset, all users have to formally agree: - Not to use any technique in an attempt to identity any person, establishment, or sampling unit on public use data files. - To hold in strictest confidence the identification of any establishment or individual that may be inadvertently revealed in any documents or discussion, or analysis. Such inadvertent identification revealed in her/his analysis will be immediately brought to the attention of the Namibia Statistics Agency. |
Public use files, accessible to all
The dataset has been anonymized and is available as a Public Use Dataset. It is accessible to all for statistical and research purposes only, under the following terms and conditions:
- The data and other materials will not be redistributed or sold to other individuals, institutions, or organizations without the written agreement of the Namibia Statistics Agency.
- The data will be used for statistical and scientific research purposes only. They will be used solely for reporting of aggregated information, and not for investigation of specific individuals or organizations.
- No attempt will be made to re-identify respondents, and no use will be made of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently. Any such discovery would immediately be reported to the Namibia Statistics Agency.
- No attempt will be made to produce links among datasets provided by the Namibia Statistics Agency, or among data from the Namibia Statistics Agency and other datasets that could identify individuals or organizations.
- Any books, articles, conference papers, theses, dissertations, reports, or other publications that employ data obtained from the Namibia Statistics Agency will cite the source of data in accordance with the Citation Requirement provided with each dataset.
- An electronic copy of all reports and publications based on the requested data will be sent to the Namibia Statistics Agency.
The original collector of the data, the Namibia Statistics Agency, and the relevant funding agencies bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses
Namibia Statistics Agency. Namibia 2023 Population and Housing Census [PUMS dataset]. Version 1.0, Windhoek: Namibia Statistics Agency [producer and distributor], July 2025
Disclaimer and copyrights
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Copyright, NSA 2025
Contacts
| Name | URL | |
|---|---|---|
| Namibia Statistics Agency | info@nsa.org.na | https://www.nsa.org.na |
Metadata production
DDI_NAM_NSA_2023 CENSUS_PUMS
| Name | Abbreviation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Namibia Statistics Agency | NSA | ocumentation of the Study |
2025-07-17