Yusuf Mansur

Jordan has launched its 2026 Population and Housing Census, one of the largest statistical operations undertaken by the state. At first glance, the exercise may appear to be simply about determining the size of the population: How many people are we? And where do we live? But the real value of a census goes far beyond arriving at a new population figure. From an economic perspective, a census is an investment in information, upon which decisions involving billions of dinars will be based in the years ahead.

The idea is not new. Thousands of years ago, states and civilizations understood that managing an economy begins with knowing its people and resources. Historical records indicate that the Babylonians practiced an early form of census, with some estimates dating it to around 3800 BC. Records also point to the development of a more systematic approach to recording wealth in Mesopotamia during the third millennium BC. From Babylon, the idea spread in different forms to other civilizations. Ancient Egypt used enumeration to assess population, labor, and resources, while Rome developed a more systematic system with an additional focus on citizens’ rights. The word censusitself comes from the Latin censere, meaning to assess or evaluate.

The function of the census, however, changed fundamentally with the emergence of the modern state. The objective became to determine where people live, their ages, education levels, household characteristics and housing conditions, as well as to identify the communities that will need schools, hospitals, water, transportation, and employment opportunities in the years ahead. This is why the United Nations recommends conducting a population and housing census within a ten-year cycle. A census is among the largest and most complex operations undertaken by governments in peacetime, and the resulting data are used for development planning, social policies, market analysis, the allocation of services, and emergency response.

In Jordan, the story began in 1952, when the first enumeration of buildings, housing units, and population was conducted. The population at the time stood at around 586,000. In 1961, Jordan carried out its first comprehensive Population and Housing Census using scientific methodologies consistent with United Nations recommendations, collecting more detailed demographic, social, and economic information. Subsequent censuses were conducted in 1979, 1994, 2004, and 2015. Their results provided the basis for population estimates and many economic and social indicators between censuses.

Jordan is entering a new phase with the 2026 Census. The operation covers approximately 2.5 million households and around one million buildings, distributed across some 24,000 statistical blocks. Nearly 12,000 field researchers are participating, including around 10,000 teachers. Technology is also playing a greater role than before through tablets, electronic questionnaires, digital maps, links with government administrative records, and the use of artificial intelligence tools for verification and monitoring.

The estimated cost of the census is around JD24 million, a relatively small amount compared with what the country could lose if investment decisions involving billions of dinars were made on the basis of outdated or inaccurate population information. Over the coming years, the state will build schools, hospitals, roads, water and sanitation networks, public transportation systems, housing projects, and other infrastructure. It will have to decide where universities and schools should be expanded, where new healthcare facilities are needed, where demand for water and energy is increasing, and where training and employment programs should be directed. Every one of these decisions has a cost, and some will have consequences lasting for decades.

If a school is built in an area where the number of children is declining while another area is experiencing increasing overcrowding, there will be an economic cost and a waste of scarce resources. If infrastructure is built in a location that does not represent the real demographic priority, there is an opportunity cost. And if the state does not know where tens of thousands of young people will be entering the labor market in the coming years, employment and training policies become less effective. Population data therefore become a form of economic infrastructure, just as a country needs roads, electricity, and telecommunications.

The benefits are not limited to government. An investor seeking to establish a factory needs to know where the labor force is located. A retailer needs to know where population, income, and demand are growing. A real estate developer needs information about household size and composition and the direction of urban expansion. Investors in education and healthcare need to understand the age structure and geographic distribution of the population. The database generated by the census is therefore an economic asset used by the public sector, the private sector, and researchers alike.

The census also performs another important economic function: it provides the basis for calculating many of the indicators used to assess economic performance. GDP per capita requires an accurate estimate of the population. The same applies to the number of physicians relative to the population, student numbers, labor-force participation rates, and indicators related to poverty, public services, housing, and others. If the denominator on which these calculations are based is inaccurate, the indicator itself may provide an inaccurate picture.

This is why conducting a census periodically is so important. Jordan’s population, which stood at around 586,000 in 1952, has now exceeded 12 million. But it is not only the number that has changed. The geographic distribution of the population, its age structure, the size of cities, housing patterns, migration, and demand for public services have also changed. A country changing at this pace cannot plan for the future using a demographic map that is more than a decade old.

The economic logic is clear: better information reduces the probability of making the wrong decision, and a wrong decision involving a project worth hundreds of millions may cost far more than the information that could have prevented it. For a country that will make investment decisions worth billions of dinars over the coming decade, accurate information may prove to be one of its highest-return and lowest-cost investments.

The author is a former Jordanian Minister of State for Economic Affairs