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Description: From 2010 to 2019, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) response rate – or the proportion of selected households who complete an LFS interview – had been on a slow downward trend, due to a range of social and technological changes which have made it more challenging to contact selected households and to persuade Canadians to participate when they are contacted. These factors were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in the suspension of face-to-face interviewing between April 2020 and fall 2022. Statistics Canada is committed to restoring LFS response rates to the greatest extent possible. This technical paper discusses two initiatives that are underway to ensure that the LFS estimates continue to provide an accurate and representative portrait of the Canadian labour market.

Description: Census of Agriculture data provide statistical information on farms and farm operators at fine geographic levels and for small subpopulations. Quality evaluation activities are essential to ensure that census data are reliable and that they meet user needs.

This report provides data quality information pertaining to the Census of Agriculture, such as sources of error, error detection, disclosure control methods, data quality indicators, response rates and collection rates.

Description: This document provides information on the evolution of response rates for the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and a discussion of the evaluation of two aspects of data quality that ensure the LFS estimates continue providing an accurate portrait of the Canadian labour market.

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 document provides a comprehensive reference to the information available from the General Social Survey (GSS). It provides a description of the content of each of the 18 GSS cycles (e.g. time use, social support, education, the family), as well as background information, target population and collection methodology. A list of the products and services available from each cycle is also included.

Description: The Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey (CTADS) is a biennial general population survey of tobacco, alcohol and drug use among Canadians aged 15 years and older, with the primary focus on 15- to 24-year-olds. The CTADS is a telephone survey conducted by Statistics Canada on behalf of Health Canada.

Description:

The 2016 Census Program Content Test was conducted from May 2 to June 30, 2014. The Test was designed to assess the impact of any proposed content changes to the 2016 Census Program and to measure the impact of including a social insurance number (SIN) question on the data quality.

This quantitative test used a split-panel design involving 55,000 dwellings, divided into 11 panels of 5,000 dwellings each: five panels were dedicated to the Content Test while the remaining six panels were for the SIN Test. Two models of test questionnaires were developed to meet the objectives, namely a model with all the proposed changes EXCEPT the SIN question and a model with all the proposed changes INCLUDING the SIN question. A third model of 'control' questionnaire with the 2011 content was also developed. The population living in a private dwelling in mail-out areas in one of the ten provinces was targeted for the test. Paper and electronic response channels were part of the Test as well.

This report presents the Test objectives, the design and a summary of the analysis in order to determine potential content for the 2016 Census Program. Results from the data analysis of the Test were not the only elements used to determine the content for 2016. Other elements were also considered, such as response burden, comparison over time and users’ needs.

Description:

The operationalization of the Population and Housing Census in Portugal is managed by a hierarchical structure in which Statistics Portugal is at the top and local government institutions at the bottom. When the Census takes place every ten years, local governments are asked to collaborate with Statistics Portugal in the execution and monitoring of the fieldwork operations at the local level. During the Pilot Test stage of the 2011 Census, local governments were asked for additional collaboration: to answer the Perception of Risk survey, whose aim was to gather information to design a quality assurance instrument that could be used to monitor the Census operations. The response rate of the survey was desired to be 100%, however, by the deadline of data collection nearly a quarter of local governments had not responded to the survey and thus a decision was made to make a follow up mailing. In this paper, we examine whether the same conclusions could have been reached from survey without follow ups as with them and evaluate the influence of follow ups on the conception of the quality assurance instrument. Comparison of responses on a set of perception variables revealed that local governments answering previous or after the follow up did not differ. However the configuration of the quality assurance instrument changed when including follow up responses.

Description:

Nonresponse is present in almost all surveys and can severely bias estimates. It is usually distinguished between unit and item nonresponse. By noting that for a particular survey variable, we just have observed and unobserved values, in this work we exploit the connection between unit and item nonresponse. In particular, we assume that the factors that drive unit response are the same as those that drive item response on selected variables of interest. Response probabilities are then estimated using a latent covariate that measures the will to respond to the survey and that can explain a part of the unknown behavior of a unit to participate in the survey. This latent covariate is estimated using latent trait models. This approach is particularly relevant for sensitive items and, therefore, can handle non-ignorable nonresponse. Auxiliary information known for both respondents and nonrespondents can be included either in the latent variable model or in the response probability estimation process. The approach can also be used when auxiliary information is not available, and we focus here on this case. We propose an estimator using a reweighting system based on the previous latent covariate when no other observed auxiliary information is available. Results on its performance are encouraging from simulation studies on both real and simulated data.

Description:

Statistics Canada was approached by Stentor Resource Centre Incorporated to conduct a survey to monitor the telephone penetration rates across Canada. The survey determines if the respondents have a telephone line in their residence. If they do not have a telephone line, information is collected as to the reasons why. Information is also collected on the income characteristics of the selected households.

The management of the survey was transferred from Stentor to Bell Canada in the Fall of 1998.

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) supplementary capacity is used to conduct this biannual survey. A sample of approximately 44,000 respondents is used for this survey (five out of six rotation groups). The survey data are collected using Computer Assisted Interviewing (CAI). The first data collection procedure took place during November's LFS week in 1996.

This microdata file is prepared biannually and contains the variables from the survey, plus geographical variables from the LFS (province, census metropolitan area, urban/rural breakdown). No other variables from the LFS are added to the file.

Description:

Series Description - The Nation Series (1996 Census of Population) is the first released series where basic data at a high level of geography are presented on variables collected by the 1996 Census.There are a total of 143 tables in the Nation Series which cover all census variables.The Complete Edition CDROM, Catalogue number 93F0020XCB96004 contains the cumulative set of all data tables from all Nation Series CDROMs.This comprehensive CDROM provides a full range of statistics on characteristics of the population which includes:Demographic information (100% data only for Age and Sex, Marital Status and Common-law Unions); Families (Number, Type and Structure); Structural Type of Dwelling and Household Size; Immigration and Citizenship; Languages; Aboriginal Origin, Ethnic Origin and Visible Minorities (Population Groups); Labour Market Activities and Household Activities (unpaid work); Place of Work and Mode of Transportation; Education; Mobility and Migration; Family, Dwellings and Household Information; as well as Individual and Family Income. Selected variables, such as occupation, are available to illustrate the analytical potential of the data based on cross-tabulations (i.e. sex by age and occupation).These data are national in coverage and provide information for Canada, provinces and territories and, in some tabulations, census metropolitan area levels. Some tables include comparisons with data from earlier censuses to provide an historical perspective.A variety of Nation Series data table extracts presenting social and economic characteristics of the Canadian population are available at the Statistics Canada Census Web site (www.statcan.gc.ca).

Description: From 2010 to 2019, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) response rate – or the proportion of selected households who complete an LFS interview – had been on a slow downward trend, due to a range of social and technological changes which have made it more challenging to contact selected households and to persuade Canadians to participate when they are contacted. These factors were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in the suspension of face-to-face interviewing between April 2020 and fall 2022. Statistics Canada is committed to restoring LFS response rates to the greatest extent possible. This technical paper discusses two initiatives that are underway to ensure that the LFS estimates continue to provide an accurate and representative portrait of the Canadian labour market.

Description:

The operationalization of the Population and Housing Census in Portugal is managed by a hierarchical structure in which Statistics Portugal is at the top and local government institutions at the bottom. When the Census takes place every ten years, local governments are asked to collaborate with Statistics Portugal in the execution and monitoring of the fieldwork operations at the local level. During the Pilot Test stage of the 2011 Census, local governments were asked for additional collaboration: to answer the Perception of Risk survey, whose aim was to gather information to design a quality assurance instrument that could be used to monitor the Census operations. The response rate of the survey was desired to be 100%, however, by the deadline of data collection nearly a quarter of local governments had not responded to the survey and thus a decision was made to make a follow up mailing. In this paper, we examine whether the same conclusions could have been reached from survey without follow ups as with them and evaluate the influence of follow ups on the conception of the quality assurance instrument. Comparison of responses on a set of perception variables revealed that local governments answering previous or after the follow up did not differ. However the configuration of the quality assurance instrument changed when including follow up responses.

Description:

Nonresponse is present in almost all surveys and can severely bias estimates. It is usually distinguished between unit and item nonresponse. By noting that for a particular survey variable, we just have observed and unobserved values, in this work we exploit the connection between unit and item nonresponse. In particular, we assume that the factors that drive unit response are the same as those that drive item response on selected variables of interest. Response probabilities are then estimated using a latent covariate that measures the will to respond to the survey and that can explain a part of the unknown behavior of a unit to participate in the survey. This latent covariate is estimated using latent trait models. This approach is particularly relevant for sensitive items and, therefore, can handle non-ignorable nonresponse. Auxiliary information known for both respondents and nonrespondents can be included either in the latent variable model or in the response probability estimation process. The approach can also be used when auxiliary information is not available, and we focus here on this case. We propose an estimator using a reweighting system based on the previous latent covariate when no other observed auxiliary information is available. Results on its performance are encouraging from simulation studies on both real and simulated data.

Description:

This report is based on data from the 2011/2012 Victim Services Survey and provides a profile of victim service agencies in Canada that responded to the survey, as well as information on the clients they served. In reference to 2011/2012, the report presents data on the types of agencies in Canada, the services offered, staff and volunteers, and criminal injuries compensation applications and awards. Characteristics of clients, such as sex, age grouping and type of victimization, are based on counts of clients served on a snapshot day of May 24, 2012. The 2011/2012 Victim Services Survey was conducted by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics and was funded by Justice Canada's Policy Centre for Victim Issues. Victim service agencies surveyed include system-based, police-based and court-based agencies, sexual assault centres, other selected community-based agencies, and criminal injuries compensation and other financial benefit programs for victims of crime. It should be noted that data on transition homes and shelters for abused women and their children are collected through Statistics Canada's Transition Home Survey.

Description:

Web surveys are generally connected with low response rates. Common suggestions in textbooks on Web survey research highlight the importance of the welcome screen in encouraging respondents to take part. The importance of this screen has been empirically proven in research, showing that most respondents breakoff at the welcome screen. However, there has been little research on the effect of the design of this screen on the level of the breakoff rate. In a study conducted at the University of Konstanz, three experimental treatments were added to a survey of the first-year student population (2,629 students) to assess the impact of different design features of this screen on the breakoff rates. The methodological experiments included varying the background color of the welcome screen, varying the promised task duration on this first screen, and varying the length of the information provided on the welcome screen explaining the privacy rights of the respondents. The analyses show that the longer stated length and the more attention given to explaining privacy rights on the welcome screen, the fewer respondents started and completed the survey. However, the use of a different background color does not result in the expected significant difference.

Description:

In January 2006, a conference on longitudinal surveys hosted by Statistics Canada, the Social and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) concluded that Canada lacks a longitudinal survey which collects information on multiple subjects such as family, human capital, labour health and follows respondents for a long period of time. Following this conference, funds were received from the Policy Research Data Gaps fund (PRDG) to support a pilot survey for a new Canadian Household Panel Survey (CHPS-Pilot). Consultations on the design and content were held with academic and policy experts in 2007 and 2008, and a pilot survey was conducted in the fall of 2008. The objectives of the pilot survey were to (1) test a questionnaire, evaluate interview length and measure the quality of data collected, (2) evaluate several design features; and (3) test reactions to the survey from respondents and field workers. The pilot survey achieved a response rate of 76%, with a median household interview time of 64 minutes. Several innovative design features were tested, and found to be viable. Response to the survey, whether from respondents or interviewers, was generally positive. This paper highlights these and other results from the CHPS-Pilot.

Description:

As survey researchers attempt to maintain traditionally high response rates, reluctant respondents have resulted in increasing data collection costs. This respondent reluctance may be related to the amount of time it takes to complete an interview in large-scale, multi-purpose surveys, such as the National Survey of Recent College Graduates (NSRCG). Recognizing that respondent burden or questionnaire length may contribute to lower response rates, in 2003, following several months of data collection under the standard data collection protocol, the NSRCG offered its nonrespondents monetary incentives about two months before the end of the data collection,. In conjunction with the incentive offer, the NSRCG also offered persistent nonrespondents an opportunity to complete a much-abbreviated interview consisting of a few critical items. The late respondents who completed the interviews as the result of the incentive and critical items-only questionnaire offers may provide some insight into the issue of nonresponse bias and the likelihood that such interviewees would have remained survey nonrespondents if these refusal conversion efforts had not been made.

In this paper, we define "reluctant respondents" as those who responded to the survey only after extra efforts were made beyond the ones initially planned in the standard data collection protocol. Specifically, reluctant respondents in the 2003 NSRCG are those who responded to the regular or shortened questionnaire following the incentive offer. Our conjecture was that the behavior of the reluctant respondents would be more like that of nonrespondents than of respondents to the surveys. This paper describes an investigation of reluctant respondents and the extent to which they are different from regular respondents. We compare different response groups on several key survey estimates. This comparison will expand our understanding of nonresponse bias in the NSRCG, and of the characteristics of nonrespondents themselves, thus providing a basis for changes in the NSRCG weighting system or estimation procedures in the future.

Description:

The Unified Enterprise Survey (UES) at Statistics Canada is an annual business survey that unifies more than 60 surveys from different industries. Two types of collection follow-up score functions are currently used in the UES data collection. The objective of using a score function is to maximize the economically weighted response rates of the survey in terms of the primary variables of interest, under the constraint of a limited follow-up budget. Since the two types of score functions are based on different methodologies, they could have different impacts on the final estimates.

This study generally compares the two types of score functions based on the collection data obtained from the two recent years. For comparison purposes, this study applies each score function method to the same data respectively and computes various estimates of the published financial and commodity variables, their deviation from the true pseudo value and their mean square deviation, based on each method. These estimates of deviation and mean square deviation based on each method are then used to measure the impact of each score function on the final estimates of the financial and commodity variables.

Description:

Non-response is inevitable in any survey, despite all the effort put into reducing it at the various stages of the survey. In particular, non-response can cause bias in the estimates. In addition, non-response is an especially serious problem in longitudinal studies because the sample shrinks over time. France's ELFE (Étude Longitudinale Française depuis l'Enfance) is a project that aims to track 20,000 children from birth to adulthood using a multidisciplinary approach. This paper is based on the results of the initial pilot studies conducted in 2007 to test the survey's feasibility and acceptance. The participation rates are presented (response rate, non-response factors) along with a preliminary description of the non-response treatment methods being considered.

Description:

A major issue in official statistics is the availability of objective measures supporting the based-on-fact decision process. Istat has developed an Information System to assess survey quality. Among other standard quality indicators, nonresponse rates are systematically computed and stored for all surveys. Such a rich information base permits analysis over time and comparisons among surveys. The paper focuses on the analysis of interrelationships between data collection mode and other survey characteristics on total nonresponse. Particular attention is devoted to the extent to which multi-mode data collection improves response rates.

Description: Census of Agriculture data provide statistical information on farms and farm operators at fine geographic levels and for small subpopulations. Quality evaluation activities are essential to ensure that census data are reliable and that they meet user needs.

This report provides data quality information pertaining to the Census of Agriculture, such as sources of error, error detection, disclosure control methods, data quality indicators, response rates and collection rates.

Description: This document provides information on the evolution of response rates for the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and a discussion of the evaluation of two aspects of data quality that ensure the LFS estimates continue providing an accurate portrait of the Canadian labour market.

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 document provides a comprehensive reference to the information available from the General Social Survey (GSS). It provides a description of the content of each of the 18 GSS cycles (e.g. time use, social support, education, the family), as well as background information, target population and collection methodology. A list of the products and services available from each cycle is also included.

Description:

The 2016 Census Program Content Test was conducted from May 2 to June 30, 2014. The Test was designed to assess the impact of any proposed content changes to the 2016 Census Program and to measure the impact of including a social insurance number (SIN) question on the data quality.

This quantitative test used a split-panel design involving 55,000 dwellings, divided into 11 panels of 5,000 dwellings each: five panels were dedicated to the Content Test while the remaining six panels were for the SIN Test. Two models of test questionnaires were developed to meet the objectives, namely a model with all the proposed changes EXCEPT the SIN question and a model with all the proposed changes INCLUDING the SIN question. A third model of 'control' questionnaire with the 2011 content was also developed. The population living in a private dwelling in mail-out areas in one of the ten provinces was targeted for the test. Paper and electronic response channels were part of the Test as well.

This report presents the Test objectives, the design and a summary of the analysis in order to determine potential content for the 2016 Census Program. Results from the data analysis of the Test were not the only elements used to determine the content for 2016. Other elements were also considered, such as response burden, comparison over time and users’ needs.

Description:

The Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) is a longitudinal survey initiated in 1993. The survey was designed to measure changes in the economic well-being of Canadians as well as the factors affecting these changes. Sample surveys are subject to sampling errors. In order to consider these errors, each estimates presented in the "Income Trends in Canada" series comes with a quality indicator based on the coefficient of variation. However, other factors must also be considered to make sure data are properly used. Statistics Canada puts considerable time and effort to control errors at every stage of the survey and to maximise the fitness for use. Nevertheless, the survey design and the data processing could restrict the fitness for use. It is the policy at Statistics Canada to furnish users with measures of data quality so that the user is able to interpret the data properly. This report summarizes the set of quality measures of SLID data. Among the measures included in the report are sample composition and attrition rates, sampling errors, coverage errors in the form of slippage rates, response rates, tax permission and tax linkage rates, and imputation rates.

Description:

The Workplace and Employee Survey Guide contains a dictionary of concepts and covers topics such as survey methodology, data collection, data processing and data quality. It also contains helpful information for researchers wishing to use the microdata.

Description:

This report describes the quality indicators produced for the 2003 Survey of Household Spending. These quality indicators, such as coefficients of variation, nonresponse rates, slippage rates and imputation rates, help users interpret the survey data.

Description:

The Food Expenditure Survey (FES) is a periodic survey collecting data from households on food spending habits. Data are collected mainly using weekly diaries of purchases that the respondents must fill in daily during two consecutive weeks.

This paper presents a detailed description of the methodology of this survey. First, we briefly described the sample design which is mainly based on the plan of the Labour Force Survey. Then we present the methods of collection, data processing, weighting, and variance estimation, as well as the suppression of unreliable data in the tables of estimates.

Description:

This report describes the quality indicators produced for the 2002 Survey of Household Spending. These quality indicators, such as coefficients of variation, nonresponse rates, slippage rates and imputation rates, help users interpret the survey data.