262. The CES Recommendations included a list of the characteristics to be collected in censuses, related to persons, groups of persons (households or family nuclei), living quarters or buildings containing dwellings. These characteristics were divided into core topics and non-core topics. “Core” topics were those for which the information is of fundamental interest and value to countries. These were recommended to be included in the 2020 round of population and housing censuses (unless the relevant data were available from other sources).

263. The topics designated as being “non-core” were those for which information, though important and often valuable in combination with other core topics, were not considered as being essential for the purposes, and which countries were given more latitude as to whether information on them should be collected.

264. The list of core and non-core topics included some topics, which were referred to as “derived” topics. These were those for which information could be obtained indirectly or inferred from the responses to other census topics or combinations of other topics, and therefore were not required to be collected separately. Examples of such topics that could be deduced in this way include household status and family status (derived from the information collected on sex, age, marital status and relationship), socio-economic group (derived from the information on occupation and employment status) and urban/rural status (derived from the total population living in a locality, which is itself a derived topic).

265. The list of topics (core, non-core and derived topics) from the 2020 CES Recommendations is presented in Table 47. The derived topics are shown in italics.

CORE TOPICS	NON-CORE TOPICS
Population to be enumerated
Location of place of usual residence
Geographic characteristics
Locality (derived)	Population grid (derived)
Location of living quarters	Degree of urbanization (derived)
Urban and rural areas (derived)	Location of school, college or university
Location of place of work	Mode of transport to work (or to place of education)
	Distance travelled to work (or to place of education) and time taken
Demographic characteristics
Sex	Total number and sex of children born alive
Age	Date(s) of legal marriage(s) of ever married women: (i) first marriage and (ii) current marriage
Legal marital status	Date(s) of the beginning of the consensual union(s) of women having ever been in consensual union: (i) first consensual union and (ii) current consensual union
De facto marital status
Economic characteristics
Labour force status	Institutional sector
Occupation	Type of place of work
Industry (branch of economic activity)	Number of persons working in the local unit of the establishment
Status in employment	Hours usually worked
	Duration of job search
	Persons in own-use production of goods
	Main source of livelihood
	Household income
	Socio economic group (derived)
Agriculture
	Own-account agriculture production (household level)
	Characteristics of all agricultural jobs during the last year (individual level)
Educational characteristics
Educational attainment	Educational qualifications
	Field of education and training
	School attendance
	Literacy
	Computer literacy
Migration
Country of birth	Country of birth of parents
Country of citizenship	Citizenship acquisition
Ever resided abroad and year of arrival in the country	Country of previous usual residence abroad
Place of birth	Total duration of residence in the country
Previous place of usual residence and date of arrival in the current place	Reason for migration
	Population with refugee background (derived)
	Place of usual residence five years prior to the census
	Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) (derived)
Ethno-cultural characteristics
	Ethnicity
	Religion
	Language
Disability
	Disability status
Household and family characteristics
Relationships between household members	Extended family status (derived)
Household status (derived)	Type of reconstituted family (derived)
Family status (derived)	Type of extended family (derived)
Type of family nucleus (derived)	Other household classifications (derived)
Size of family nucleus (derived)	Generational composition of private households (derived)
Type of private household (derived)	Single or shared occupancy
Size of private household (derived)	Rent and other housing costs
Tenure status of households	Durable consumer goods possessed by the household
	Number of cars available for the use of the household
	Availability of car parking
	Telephone and Internet connection
Housing characteristics
Type of living quarters	Characteristics of dwellings with no occupants at the time of census
Housing arrangements	Occupancy by number of private households
Occupancy status of conventional dwellings	Type of rooms
Type of ownership	Hot water
Number of occupants	Type of sewage disposal system
Useful floor space and/or number of rooms of housing units	Kitchen
Density standard (derived)	Main type of energy used for heating
Water supply system	Electricity
Toilet facilities	Piped gas
Bathing facilities	Air-conditioning
Type of heating	Accessibility to dwelling
Dwellings by type of building	Position of dwelling in the building
Dwellings by period of construction of building	Dwellings by number of floors in the building
	Lift
	Dwellings by materials of which specific parts of the building are constructed
	Dwellings by state of repair of the building

266. The following chapters note in detail the extent to which countries in the UNECE region complied with the CES Recommendations. Each chapter is devoted to a particular topic or a set of closely related characteristics, and follows the order in which these topics are set out in the CESR. In summary, it can be reported here that in the clear majority of cases countries complied with the CES Recommendations not only on the inclusion of topics but in the adoption of the concepts, definitions and classifications. In some cases the compliance with the CES Recommendations was partial, and these are discussed in more detail in the following chapters. There were generally, however, as might be expected, lower levels of compliance with the non-core topics.