Estimation of an indicator of the representativeness of survey response

Abstract

Nonresponse is a major source of estimation error in sample surveys. The response rate is widely used to measure the quality of a sample survey associated with nonresponse. It is, however, inadequate as an indicator because of its limited relation with nonresponse bias. Schouten et al. (2009) proposed an alternative indicator, which they refer to as an indicator of representativeness or R-indicator. This indicator measures the variability of the probabilities of response for units in the population. This paper develops methods for the estimation of this R-indicator assuming that values of a set of auxiliary variables are observed for both respondents and nonrespondents. In particular, we consider the bias of point estimators proposed by Schouten et al. (2009) and propose bias adjustments and linearization variance estimators. The proposed procedures are evaluated in a simulation study and their use is illustrated in an application to two business surveys at Statistics Netherlands