Administrative Records for Survey Methodology

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Established in Part by Walter A. Shewhart and Samuel S. Wilks

Editors: Mick P. Couper, Graham Kalton, J. N. K. Rao, Norbert Schwarz, Christopher Skinner, Lars Lyberg

Editor Emeritus: Robert M. Groves

Edited by

Asaph Young Chun

Statistics Research Institute

Statistics Korea, Republic of Korea

Michael D. Larsen

Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Saint Michael’s College, United States

Gabriele Durrant

Department of Social Statistics and Demography

Southampton University, UK

Jerome P. Reiter

Department of Statistical Science

Duke University, United States

This first edition first published 2021 © 2021 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chun, Asaph Young, editor. | Larsen, Michael D., 1977- editor.

Title: Administrative records for survey methodology / edited by Asaph Young Chun, Statistics Research Institute | Statistics Korea, Republic of Korea, Michael D. Larsen, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, United States, Gabriele Durrant, UK, Jerome P. Reiter, United States.

Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021. | Series: Wiley series in survey methodology

Identifiers: LCCN 2020030571 (print) | LCCN 2020030572 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119272045 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119272052 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119272069 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Surveys–Methodology. | Surveys–Quality control.

Classification: LCC HA31.2 .A36 2021 (print) | LCC HA31.2 (ebook) | DDC 001.4/33–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030571

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030572

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: © PopTika/Shutterstock

Sample surveys are used by governments to describe the populations of their countries and provide estimates for use in policy decision making. Surveys can focus on individuals, households, businesses, students and schools, patients and hospitals, plots of land, or other entities. For surveys to be useful for official purposes they must cover the target population, represent the entirety of the population, collect information on key variables with accurate measurement methods, and have large enough sample sizes so that estimates are sufficiently precise at national and subnational levels. Achieving these four goals in a nationwide sample survey with a limited budget while being conducted in a short time interval is very challenging. The purpose of this book is to explore developments in the use of administrative records for improving sample surveys.

Sample surveys aim to gather information on a population. The target population is the specific part of the population that one aims to survey. Some parts of the broader population typically are excluded from the target population based on contact mode, data collection mode, the survey frame or list, or convenience. Individuals without a regular address, residing in some forms of group quarters, or without phone or Internet access, for example, might be effectively ineligible to serve as respondents. Survey frames record contact information and some other variables on members of a population, but of course they do not necessarily include all members of the population and have up-to-date information on everyone. Some individuals with accurate contact information in the frame will prove harder than others to contact or even refuse to participate. Surveys then are potentially limited to reporting about respondents and the population to which they are similar. Surveys cannot be overly long or else they risk deterring potential respondents and costing a lot of money per respondent. As a result, surveys can accommodate only so many questions. Self-report and less detailed questions, with their inherent limitations, for sensitive and complex items, often must be used for expediency. Budgets for national surveys compete with other government interests. Even large surveys typically have smaller-than-desired sample sizes in local areas and in subsets of the population. Despite these significant challenges, official statistical agencies around the world gather critically useful data on a myriad of topics.

The conditions for conducting sample surveys have changed immensely in the past 100 years. There is little chance that change will slow down. In-person surveys have been replaced and augmented by surveys by mail, by phone, and by Internet. Contact and data collection via multiple modes now are standard. The social environment, too, has evolved. Response rates are lower. Despite technological advances, people are increasingly busy. Official government surveys compete for attention with ever-more marketing and polling. Concerns over privacy and confidentiality have been elevated, rightly so, in the public consciousness. Simultaneously, government, researchers, and the public want more from data and surveys. Official surveys contribute to identifying challenges and to improvements in society. It is not practical, or maybe even possible, to get more out of old ways of conducting surveys.