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Description: Recent changes in Canada’s immigration levels have heightened interest in understanding how immigration affects housing demand. This article develops a methodological framework for projecting housing use associated with permanent residents (PRs) and non-permanent residents (NPRs) under alternative immigration scenarios. The framework applies observed per capita housing use rates from the Census of Population to estimate incremental housing use by tenure over time.

Description: The Technical Guide on Demographic Estimates at Statistics Canada provides detailed descriptions of the most current data sources and methods used by the Centre for demography at Statistics Canada to produce demographic estimates as part of the Demographic estimates program. They comprise postcensal and intercensal population estimates; base population; births and deaths; immigrants; emigrants; returning emigrants; non-permanent residents; interprovincial migration; subprovincial estimates of population and intraprovincial migration; population estimates by age and gender; and census family estimates. A glossary of commonly used terms is available at the end of the guide.

Description: This video presents Statistics Canada’s estimation method of the number of non-permanent residents.

Description: This paper introduces and explains modifications made to the Labour Force Survey estimates.

Description: The public use microdata file from the 2010 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating is now available. This file contains information collected from nearly 15,000 respondents aged 15 and over residing in private households in the provinces. The public use microdata file provides provincial-level information about the ways in which Canadians donate money and in-kind gifts to charitable and nonprofit organizations; volunteer their time to these organizations; provide help directly to others. Socio-demographic, income and labour force data are also included on the file.

Description: The Canadian Income Survey (CIS) has introduced improvements to the methods and data sources used to produce income and poverty estimates with the release of its 2022 reference year estimates. Foremost among these improvements is a significant increase in the sample size for a large subset of the CIS content. The weighting methodology was also improved and the target population of the CIS was changed from persons aged 16 years and over to persons aged 15 years and over. This paper describes the changes made and presents the approximate net result of these changes on the income estimates and data quality of the CIS using 2021 data. The changes described in this paper highlight the ways in which data quality has been improved while having little impact on key CIS estimates and trends.

Description: Estimation at fine levels of aggregation is necessary to better describe society. Small area estimation model-based approaches that combine sparse survey data with rich data from auxiliary sources have been proven useful to improve the reliability of estimates for small domains. Considered here is a scenario where small area model-based estimates, produced at a given aggregation level, needed to be disaggregated to better describe the social structure at finer levels. For this scenario, an allocation method was developed to implement the disaggregation, overcoming challenges associated with data availability and model development at such fine levels. The method is applied to adult literacy and numeracy estimation at the county-by-group-level, using data from the U.S. Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. In this application the groups are defined in terms of age or education, but the method could be applied to estimation of other equity-deserving groups.

Description: In accordance with Statistics Canada’s long-term Disaggregated Data Action Plan (DDAP), several initiatives have been implemented into the Labour Force Survey (LFS). One of the more direct initiatives was a targeted increase in the size of the monthly LFS sample. Furthermore, a regular Supplement program was introduced, where an additional series of questions are asked to a subset of LFS respondents and analyzed in a monthly or quarterly production cycle. Finally, the production of modelled estimates based on Small Area Estimation (SAE) methodologies resumed for the LFS and will include a wider scope with more analytical value than what had existed in the past. This paper will give an overview of these three initiatives.

Description: Sampling variance smoothing is an important topic in small area estimation. In this paper, we propose sampling variance smoothing methods for small area proportion estimation. In particular, we consider the generalized variance function and design effect methods for sampling variance smoothing. We evaluate and compare the smoothed sampling variances and small area estimates based on the smoothed variance estimates through analysis of survey data from Statistics Canada. The results from real data analysis indicate that the proposed sampling variance smoothing methods work very well for small area estimation.

Description: We present design-based Horvitz-Thompson and multiplicity estimators of the population size, as well as of the total and mean of a response variable associated with the elements of a hidden population to be used with the link-tracing sampling variant proposed by Félix-Medina and Thompson (2004). Since the computation of the estimators requires to know the inclusion probabilities of the sampled people, but they are unknown, we propose a Bayesian model which allows us to estimate them, and consequently to compute the estimators of the population parameters. The results of a small numeric study indicate that the performance of the proposed estimators is acceptable.

Description:

Cycle 15 of the General Social Survey (GSS) is the third cycle to collect detailed information on family life in Canada. The previous GSS cycles that collected family data were Cycles 5 and 10. Topics include demographic characteristics such as age, sex, and marital status; family origin of parents; brothers and sisters; marriages of respondent; common-law unions of respondent; fertility and family intentions; values and attitudes; education history; work history; main activity and other characteristics.

The target population for Cycle 15 of the GSS is all persons 15 years of age and older in Canada, excluding residents of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, and full-time residents of institutions.

Description: This report presents a brief overview of the information collected in Cycle 14 of the General Social Survey (GSS). Cycle 14 is the first cycle to collect detailed information on access to and use of information communication technology in Canada. Topics include general use of technology and computers, technology in the workplace, development of computer skills, frequency of Internet and E-mail use, non-users and security and information on the Internet. The target population of the GSS is all individuals aged 15 and over living in a private household in one of the ten provinces.

Description:

The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), developed jointly by Human Resources Development Canada and Statistics Canada, is a comprehensive survey which follows the development of children in Canada and paints a picture of their lives. The survey monitors children's development and measures the incidence of various factors that influence their development, both positively and negatively.

Description:

The Survey of Usage by Businesses of the Social Insurance Number was conducted during June and July 2000 on behalf of Human Resources Development Canada. The survey asked companies with two or more employees how they used the Social Insurance Number of their employees, contract workers and clients, and how they used the SIN card. This electronic publication presents 7 selected detailed tables in support of The daily (cat. no. 11-001-XIE) release February 15, along with methods and concepts pertaining to the release.

Description:

Cycle 10 collected data from persons 15 years and older and concentrated on the respondent's family. Topics covered include marital history, common- law unions, biological, adopted and step children, family origins, child leaving and fertility intentions.

The target population of the GSS (General Social Survey) consisted of all individuals aged 15 and over living in a private household in one of the ten provinces.

Description:

Cycle 7 collected data from persons 15 years of age and older. The core content of time use repeats that of cycle 2 and provides data on the daily activities of Canadians. Question modules were also included on unpaid work activities, cultural activities and participation in sports.

The target population of the GSS (General Social Survey) consisted of all individuals aged 15 and over living in a private household in one of the ten provinces.

Description:

The National Population Health Survey (NPHS) uses the Labour Force Survey sampling frame to draw a sample of approximately 22,000 households. The sample is distributed over four quarterly collection periods. In each household, some limited information is collected from all household members and one person, aged 12 years and over, in each household is randomly selected for a more in-depth interview.

The questionnaire includes content related to health status, use of health services, determinants of health and a range of demographic and economic information. For example, the health status information includes self-perception of health, a health status index, chronic conditions, and activity restrictions. The use of health services is probed through visits to health care providers, both traditional and non-traditional, and the use of drugs and other medications. Health determinants include smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and in the first survey, emphasis has been placed on the collection of selected psycho-social factors that may influence health, such as stress, self-esteem and social support. The demographic and economic information includes age, sex, education, ethnicity, household income and labour force status.

Description:

Matrix sampling, often referred to as split-questionnaire, is a sampling design that involves dividing a questionnaire into subsets of questions, possibly overlapping, and then administering each subset to one or more different random subsamples of an initial sample. This increasingly appealing design addresses concerns related to data collection costs, respondent burden and data quality, but reduces the number of sample units that are asked each question. A broadened concept of matrix design includes the integration of samples from separate surveys for the benefit of streamlined survey operations and consistency of outputs. For matrix survey sampling with overlapping subsets of questions, we propose an efficient estimation method that exploits correlations among items surveyed in the various subsamples in order to improve the precision of the survey estimates. The proposed method, based on the principle of best linear unbiased estimation, generates composite optimal regression estimators of population totals using a suitable calibration scheme for the sampling weights of the full sample. A variant of this calibration scheme, of more general use, produces composite generalized regression estimators that are also computationally very efficient.

Description:

We are concerned with optimal linear estimation of means on subsequent occasions under sample rotation where evolution of samples in time is designed through a cascade pattern. It has been known since the seminal paper of Patterson (1950) that when the units are not allowed to return to the sample after leaving it for certain period (there are no gaps in the rotation pattern), one step recursion for optimal estimator holds. However, in some important real surveys, e.g., Current Population Survey in the US or Labour Force Survey in many countries in Europe, units return to the sample after being absent in the sample for several occasions (there are gaps in rotation patterns). In such situations difficulty of the question of the form of the recurrence for optimal estimator increases drastically. This issue has not been resolved yet. Instead alternative sub-optimal approaches were developed, as K - composite estimation (see e.g., Hansen, Hurwitz, Nisselson and Steinberg (1955)), AK - composite estimation (see e.g., Gurney and Daly (1965)) or time series approach (see e.g., Binder and Hidiroglou (1988)).

In the present paper we overcome this long-standing difficulty, that is, we present analytical recursion formulas for the optimal linear estimator of the mean for schemes with gaps in rotation patterns. It is achieved under some technical conditions: ASSUMPTION I and ASSUMPTION II (numerical experiments suggest that these assumptions might be universally satisfied). To attain the goal we develop an algebraic operator approach which allows to reduce the problem of recursion for the optimal linear estimator to two issues: (1) localization of roots (possibly complex) of a polynomial Q_p defined in terms of the rotation pattern (Q_p happens to be conveniently expressed through Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind), (2) rank of a matrix S defined in terms of the rotation pattern and the roots of the polynomial Q_p. In particular, it is shown that the order of the recursion is equal to one plus the size of the largest gap in the rotation pattern. Exact formulas for calculation of the recurrence coefficients are given - of course, to use them one has to check (in many cases, numerically) that ASSUMPTIONs I and II are satisfied. The solution is illustrated through several examples of rotation schemes arising in real surveys.

Description:

In business surveys, it is not unusual to collect economic variables for which the distribution is highly skewed. In this context, winsorization is often used to treat the problem of influential values. This technique requires the determination of a constant that corresponds to the threshold above which large values are reduced. In this paper, we consider a method of determining the constant which involves minimizing the largest estimated conditional bias in the sample. In the context of domain estimation, we also propose a method of ensuring consistency between the domain-level winsorized estimates and the population-level winsorized estimate. The results of two simulation studies suggest that the proposed methods lead to winsorized estimators that have good bias and relative efficiency properties.

Description:

We consider the observed best prediction (OBP; Jiang, Nguyen and Rao 2011) for small area estimation under the nested-error regression model, where both the mean and variance functions may be misspecified. We show via a simulation study that the OBP may significantly outperform the empirical best linear unbiased prediction (EBLUP) method not just in the overall mean squared prediction error (MSPE) but also in the area-specific MSPE for every one of the small areas. A bootstrap method is proposed for estimating the design-based area-specific MSPE, which is simple and always produces positive MSPE estimates. The performance of the proposed MSPE estimator is evaluated through a simulation study. An application to the Television School and Family Smoking Prevention and Cessation study is considered.

Description:

Two sources of industry productivity growth are firm productivity improvements and the reallocation of productive resources from less productive to more productive firms. This paper studies the role of offshoring in improving industry productivity through these two channels, using a new Canadian manufacturing data base that links the Annual Survey of Manufactures and the Importer Register database at the commodity level. The database provides information on direct imports of intermediate inputs by firms. This allows us to estimate offshoring intensity in Canada at the firm level, and to differentiate those imports by region of origin.

Description:

This new dataset increases the information available for comparing the performance of provinces and territories across a range of measures. It combines often fragmented provincial time series data that, as such, are of limited utility for examining the evolution of provincial economies over extended periods. More advanced statistical methods, and models with greater breadth and depth, are difficult to apply to existing fragmented Canadian data. The longitudinal nature of the new provincial dataset remedies this shortcoming. This report explains the construction of the latest vintage of the dataset. The dataset contains the most up-to-date information available.

Description:

When studying a finite population, it is sometimes necessary to select samples from several sampling frames in order to represent all individuals. Here we are interested in the scenario where two samples are selected using a two-stage design, with common first-stage selection. We apply the Hartley (1962), Bankier (1986) and Kalton and Anderson (1986) methods, and we show that these methods can be applied conditional on first-stage selection. We also compare the performance of several estimators as part of a simulation study. Our results suggest that the estimator should be chosen carefully when there are multiple sampling frames, and that a simple estimator is sometimes preferable, even if it uses only part of the information collected.

Description: Parametric fractional imputation (PFI), proposed by Kim (2011), is a tool for general purpose parameter estimation under missing data. We propose a fractional hot deck imputation (FHDI) which is more robust than PFI or multiple imputation. In the proposed method, the imputed values are chosen from the set of respondents and assigned proper fractional weights. The weights are then adjusted to meet certain calibration conditions, which makes the resulting FHDI estimator efficient. Two simulation studies are presented to compare the proposed method with existing methods.

Description:

This document is for analysts/researchers who are considering doing research with data from a survey where both survey weights and bootstrap weights are provided in the data files. This document gives directions, for some selected software packages, about how to get started in using survey weights and bootstrap weights for an analysis of survey data. We give brief directions for obtaining survey-weighted estimates, bootstrap variance estimates (and other desired error quantities) and some typical test statistics for each software package in turn. While these directions are provided just for the chosen examples, there will be information about the range of weighted and bootstrapped analyses that can be carried out by each software package.

Description:

Bayes linear estimator for finite population is obtained from a two-stage regression model, specified only by the means and variances of some model parameters associated with each stage of the hierarchy. Many common design-based estimators found in the literature can be obtained as particular cases. A new ratio estimator is also proposed for the practical situation in which auxiliary information is available. The same Bayes linear approach is proposed for obtaining estimation of proportions for multiple categorical data associated with finite population units, which is the main contribution of this work. A numerical example is provided to illustrate it.

Description: Recent changes in Canada’s immigration levels have heightened interest in understanding how immigration affects housing demand. This article develops a methodological framework for projecting housing use associated with permanent residents (PRs) and non-permanent residents (NPRs) under alternative immigration scenarios. The framework applies observed per capita housing use rates from the Census of Population to estimate incremental housing use by tenure over time.

Description: The Technical Guide on Demographic Estimates at Statistics Canada provides detailed descriptions of the most current data sources and methods used by the Centre for demography at Statistics Canada to produce demographic estimates as part of the Demographic estimates program. They comprise postcensal and intercensal population estimates; base population; births and deaths; immigrants; emigrants; returning emigrants; non-permanent residents; interprovincial migration; subprovincial estimates of population and intraprovincial migration; population estimates by age and gender; and census family estimates. A glossary of commonly used terms is available at the end of the guide.

Description: This paper introduces and explains modifications made to the Labour Force Survey estimates.

Description:

This report describes sampling, weighting and estimation procedures used in the Census of Population. It provides operational and theoretical justifications for them, and presents the results of the evaluations of these procedures.

Description: This electronic publication presents the methodology underlying the production of the life tables for Canada, provinces and territories.

Description: This document introduces and describes updates to the Labour Force Survey estimates in January 2023. These updates include the transition to National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2021 as well as enhancements to the LFS data processing system.

Description:

This paper introduces and explains modifications made to the Labour Force Survey estimates in January 2021. Some of these modifications include the adjustment of all LFS estimates to reflect population counts based on the 2016 Census and includes updates to 2016 Geography classification system.

Description:

This document brings together guidelines and checklists on many issues that need to be considered in the pursuit of quality objectives in the execution of statistical activities. Its focus is on how to assure quality through effective and appropriate design or redesign of a statistical project or program from inception through to data evaluation, dissemination and documentation. These guidelines draw on the collective knowledge and experience of many Statistics Canada employees. It is expected that Quality Guidelines will be useful to staff engaged in the planning and design of surveys and other statistical projects, as well as to those who evaluate and analyze the outputs of these projects.

Description:

This report describes sampling and weighting procedures used in the 2011 National Household Survey. It provides operational and theoretical justifications for them, and presents the results of the evaluation studies of these procedures.

Description:

This paper introduces and explains modifications made to the Labour Force Survey estimates in January 2015. Some of these modifications include the adjustment of all LFS estimates to reflect population counts based on the 2011 Census and includes updates to 2011 Geography classification system.