Investigating the potential effects of small cell adjustment on interaction data from the 2001 Census

Although the population census is the most important source of information about people in small areas, the government is required by law to prevent the disclosure of information about identifiable individuals or households. In this paper we use data from the 1991 Census to simulate the effects of the disclosure method proposed for use in adjusting the 2001 Census interaction datasets. The results suggest differing impacts on the frequencies of certain counts as data at the level of adjustment are aggregated, with varying implications for the analytical measures of migration used in comparative research.