Weighting schemes for household panel surveys

Household panel surveys often start with a sample of households and then attempt to follow all the members of those households for the life of the panel. At subsequent waves data are collected for the original sample members and for all the persons who are living with the sample members at the time. It is desirable to include the data collected both for the original sample persons and for the persons living with them in making person-level cross-sectional estimates for a particular wave. Similarly, it is desirable to include data for all the households for which data are collected at a particular wave in making household-level cross-sectional estimates for that wave. This paper reviews weighting schemes that can be used for these purposes. These weighting schemes may also be used in other settings in which units have more than one way of being selected for the sample.