Comparability Issues in Historical Serbian Census Microdata: A Challenge for Cross-Cultural Analyses of Household Structures

Siegfried Gruber, University of Graz
Daniel-Armin Ðumic, University of Graz

More often than not, historical sources used for analyzing household structures are not ideal, as they might be incomplete or contain ambiguous content. The Serbian census of 1862/63 was conducted for tax purposes, and therefore the tax units of the census need to be adjusted to household borders, a task that has not been properly addressed in earlier scholarly work. Complications arise with the reporting of servants. They were variably recorded within their employers' households, occasionally listed separately but adjacent. In some cases, they were grouped with other servants towards the end of the city population records. Additionally, closer attention needs to be paid to 1-person households, minors' units, and units lacking income or property. Categories like institutions and tutors, which are excluded due to their unique nature, need to be given appropriate attention. Additional data from the censuses of 1834 and 1884 and head tax lists of the 1830s provide the possibility of comparing the units used in these 19th-century Serbian population enumerations. This paper exemplifies and summarizes the challenges in the case of the Serbian census of 1862/63 compared to other Serbian population enumerations and discusses possible solutions for these issues while also identifying possible biases for comparative research. It takes into consideration the urban-rural differences and their impact on classification. By untangling complexities in defining households, this paper contributes to understanding the dynamics of households in historical research based on this census.

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 Presented in Session 21. Evaluating Data Quality II