Abstract

There are two categories of immigrants (born abroad) in Israel: those who got permanent residency and were listed in the population registry (Israelis), and those who obtained a visa for a lengthy stay but were not listed in the registry (foreigners). Despite the fact that there is a good national foreigner registration system that allows for the creation of a sample frame, the registration does not include a residential address in Israel, making it difficult to create a sample frame at the local level. An area scan approach was done to collect data on foreigners during both the 2008 integrated census and the traditional population censuses that Israel has conducted in the past. The census of 2022 included a sample of people drawn from the administrative system. This sample strategy enables limited data collection on foreigners who reside in Israeli households, but it is not possible to gather data on foreigners who reside in households where all of the residents are foreigners. To overcome the lack of address registration among foreigners, we had to employ several data sources and statistical tools in order to locate the foreigners at the address where they resided. Foreigners living in Israel are grouped into a number of groups based on their reason for being there (workers, students, asylum seekers, etc.), as well as other factors, including the economic sector in which they operate. Because the sources of registration and address imputation for the unaddressed are different, it is crucial to distinguish between the groups. In this paper, I'd like to discuss how the framework for the foreign population in Israel is being built for the 2022 census, as well as the challenges in linking records from different data sources to count each foreigner according to his relevant group and avoid double counting and avoid other over counts. Also, I'd like to outline the various groups and the various scenarios for assigning/imputing an address to each group. Finally, I'd like to discuss how this project would help Israel transition to an administrative census.