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All (2,481)

All (2,481) (50 to 60 of 2,481 results)

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100016
    Description: The adoption of synthetic data generation as a confidentiality measure is increasing in statistical agencies worldwide, including at Statistics Canada. This approach provides an alternative to the traditional dissemination of anonymized public microdata files, offering both privacy protection and data utility. However, the creation of synthetic data presents challenges in assessing and mitigating disclosure risks. This paper reviews the different types of disclosure risks, that being attribute, membership and identity disclosure, and presents some of the associated methods for measuring risk. The paper presents prominent risk assessment metrics and discusses practical methods for disclosure control in data synthesis. Methods for assessing disclosure risks usually produce a metric that can be used to gauge the risk, but there is little consensus on threshold values for these metrics. It is also important to focus on importance of balancing utility and confidentiality, which needs further discussion in context of these methods. The paper concludes by offering insights and recommendations about managing disclosure risk while creating synthetic data as well as providing some ideas on future directions for research and practical implications for managing disclosure risks in synthetic data.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100017
    Description: Utilities hold crucial information about energy usage and building characteristics which can be utilized by government agencies to improve their corresponding analytics. However, this data is associated with private customer records and thus the building data and energy usage may be too sensitive to share. Often, high-level aggregated versions of this data are shared through robust contracts, limiting the statistics that can be derived. With the advancement of generative machine learning techniques, Statistics Canada and Natural Resources Canada have explored the feasibility of using these models to produce synthetic versions of utility data which may be shared in full to requesting organizations. These synthetic datasets can be created by a utility company through a locally run program and the outputs can be approved before being sent. This work has identified that certain generative models can feasibly be used by utilities to generate new versions of a dataset and has identified the issues which must be addressed prior to implementing this in practice. Both tabular and time-series models have been tested for different data sharing scenarios, where the TimeGAN model successfully captured the general energy peaks and valleys over a given day with reasonable computational requirements. Although this process takes days for annual energy amounts over thousands of customer records, this can enable new data sharing initiatives between utilities and National Statistical Offices while managing privacy risks. As work progresses in future phases with real utility partners, trust can be built for these approaches, and they can begin being tested on real data by actual data holders.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100018
    Description: The Child Poverty Reduction Act (2018) outlines a need for the New Zealand Government to set three- and ten-yearly persistent child poverty reduction targets come end of 2024. In the absence of longitudinal survey data, a survey-administrative data hybrid method that will facilitate the production of these reduction targets and official estimates of persistent child poverty once reporting is required for the 2025/2026 financial year onwards is outlined. This hybrid approach leverages off the cross-sectional Household Economic Survey (HES), administrative-based beneficiary's family data, and recent advances developed for the construction of households within the Administrative Population Census (APC) at Statistics New Zealand. With increasing data collection challenges due to rising non-response and costs, this survey-admin hybrid method represents an alternative to longitudinal survey data collection, ensuring ongoing sustainable and quality statistics to produce persistent child poverty estimates.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100019
    Description: Accurate and efficient record linkage is crucial for maintaining a comprehensive and current Statistical Business Register (SBR) at Statistics Canada. Linking external business lists to the SBR by name presents computational and methodological challenges, especially as data volumes grow. This paper describes a scalable methodology that employs blocking techniques to constrain the computational search space and integrates multiple similarity measures—from edit distances and n-gram overlaps to embedding-based methods using Sentence-BERT (SBERT)—to identify likely matches. By combining simple character-level comparisons with more advanced semantic embedding methods, the approach can adapt to various naming conventions and complexities. While it does not guarantee superior accuracy in all circumstances, it offers a pragmatic balance between computational feasibility and linkage quality.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100020
    Description: At Statistics Canada, many data sets are linked with quasi-identifiers such as the first name, last name, or address. In such cases, linkage errors are a potential concern and must be measured. In that regard, previous studies have shown that the evaluation may be based on modeling the number of links from a given record while accounting for all the interactions among the linkage variables and dispensing with clerical reviews, so long as the decision to link two records does not involve other records. In this communication, the methodology is adapted for a class of practical strategies, which violate this constraint by linking the records in consecutive waves, where a given wave links a subset of the records that are not linked in previous waves. In particular, the linkage may be based on a deterministic wave followed by a probabilistic one.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100021
    Description: Optimal threshold selection is a critical challenge in probabilistic linkage, with significant implications for the accuracy and reliability of linked datasets. This paper analyzes the performance of the neighbour model, a recently proposed error model which models linkage errors by the number of links from each record. Three threshold selection algorithms utilizing the neighbour model were assessed, highlighting the strengths and limitations of each. Their performance was assessed through simulation studies, which demonstrated that methods using the neighbour model achieved lower relative bias compared to two established methods for threshold selection. Additionally, the practical utility was validated through goodness-of-fit tests conducted on four agricultural datasets, showing the potential of the model for use in real-world applications.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100022
    Description: In Canada, T1 Tax forms are used to report personal income, whether earned as an employee or through self-employment. Income from self-employment, or "T1 Business Income" is reported by sole proprietorships or partnerships. A T1 partnership involves two or more legal entities jointly filing for a shared business. T1 business data is received as individual filings, meaning partnerships are received separately for each partner. Internal record linkage within the T1 business database is performed to identify partnerships and prevent overcoverage within the final population of T1 businesses. This new T1 partnership identification process takes advantage of newer algorithms, such as DBSCAN numerical clustering fuzzy matching, to identify internal linkages. Graph theory is used to construct the list of partnerships from the row-pairs identified in the linkage process.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100023
    Description: The latest Canadian Census Health and Environment Cohort (CanCHEC) continues a series of population-based microdata linkages focused on population health research by demographic, social and economic characteristics. The 2021 CanCHEC consists of 95.5% of the 2021 Census long-form sample survey records. The records of survey respondents that could not be linked to the Derived Record Depository and those presumed to be duplicates account for the remaining 4.5%. Linkage-adjusted main and replicate weights allow researchers to estimate and evaluate the variance of summary measures about population health in the presence of missed linked pairs to better understand the experiences of diverse population groups.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100024
    Description: This paper explores a vision for the future of National Statistics Offices (NSOs). It analyses the history and role of NSOs before exploring current and future challenges and opportunities for NSOs, before finally outlining a future where NSOs become more agile, open, and collaborative while maintaining their high level of trust in the community, thereby allowing them to fulfil their new role as data stewards in a rapidly evolving data landscape.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 11-522-X202500100025
    Description: National statistical offices have increasingly adopted machine learning (ML) for its potential to improve survey estimates. ML techniques offer significant advantages, notably the ability to manage high-dimensional data and to capture complex, nonlinear relationships, thereby enhancing the overall quality of survey statistics. In this article, following the approach of Chernozhukov et al. (2018), we describe a double debiased machine learning framework that enables valid statistical inference when imputed estimators are derived from ML procedures. Simulation results suggest that the proposed framework performs well in a wide range of scenarios.
    Release date: 2025-09-08
Data (10)

Data (10) ((10 results))

  • Public use microdata: 89F0002X
    Description: The SPSD/M is a static microsimulation model designed to analyse financial interactions between governments and individuals in Canada. It can compute taxes paid to and cash transfers received from government. It is comprised of a database, a series of tax/transfer algorithms and models, analytical software and user documentation.
    Release date: 2026-02-12

  • Profile of a community or region: 46-26-0002
    Description: The National Address Register (NAR) is a list of commercial and residential addresses in Canada that are extracted from Statistics Canada's Building Register and deemed non-confidential.
    Release date: 2025-12-19

  • Table: 89-26-0006
    Description: PASSAGES is an open-source dynamic microsimulation model aimed at supporting policy analysis and research relating to Canadian retirement income system outcomes at the individual and family level. The publicly available version includes a synthetic starting database, a model, and documentation. A confidential starting database is also available.
    Release date: 2025-03-12

  • Data Visualization: 71-607-X2020010
    Description: The Canadian Statistical Geospatial Explorer empowers users to discover geo enabled data holdings of Statistics Canada at various levels of geography including at the neighbourhood level. Users are able to visualize, thematically map, spatially explore and analyze, export and consume data in various formats. Users can also view the data superimposed on satellite imagery, topographic and street layers.
    Release date: 2024-08-21

  • Table: 11-10-0074-01
    Geography: Census tract
    Frequency: Occasional
    Description:

    The divergence index (D-index) describes the degree that families with different income levels are mixing together in neighbourhoods. It compares neighbourhood (census tract, CT) discrete income distributions to a base distribution, which is the income quintiles of the neighbourhood’s census metropolitan area (CMA).

    Release date: 2020-06-22

  • Data Visualization: 71-607-X2019010
    Description: The Housing Data Viewer is a visualization tool that allows users to explore Statistics Canada data on a map. Users can use the tool to navigate, compare and export data.
    Release date: 2019-10-30

  • Table: 53-500-X
    Description:

    This report presents the results of a pilot survey conducted by Statistics Canada to measure the fuel consumption of on-road motor vehicles registered in Canada. This study was carried out in connection with the Canadian Vehicle Survey (CVS) which collects information on road activity such as distance traveled, number of passengers and trip purpose.

    Release date: 2004-10-21

  • Table: 13-220-X
    Description: In the 1997 edition, new and revised benchmarks were introduced for 1992 and 1988. The indicators are used to monitor supply, demand and employment for tourism in Canada on a timely basis. The annual tables are derived using the National Income and Expenditure Accounts (NIEA) and various industry and travel surveys. Tables providing actual data and percentage changes, for seasonally adjusted current and constant price estimates are included. In addition, an analytical section provides graphs, and time series of first differences, percentage changes, and seasonal factors for selected indicators. Data are published from 1987 and the publication will be available on the day of release. New data are included in the demand tables for non-tourism commodities produced by non-tourism industries and in the employment tables covering direct tourism employment generated by non-tourism industries. This product was commissioned by the Canadian Tourism Commission to provide annual updates for the Tourism Satellite Account.
    Release date: 2003-01-08

  • Table: 11-516-X
    Description:

    The second edition of Historical statistics of Canada was jointly produced by the Social Science Federation of Canada and Statistics Canada in 1983. This volume contains about 1,088 statistical tables on the social, economic and institutional conditions of Canada from the start of Confederation in 1867 to the mid-1970s. The tables are arranged in sections with an introduction explaining the content of each section, the principal sources of data for each table, and general explanatory notes regarding the statistics. In most cases, there is sufficient description of the individual series to enable the reader to use them without consulting the numerous basic sources referenced in the publication.

    The electronic version of this historical publication is accessible on the Internet site of Statistics Canada as a free downloadable document: text as HTML pages and all tables as individual spreadsheets in a comma delimited format (CSV) (which allows online viewing or downloading).

    Release date: 1999-07-29

  • Table: 82-567-X
    Description:

    The National Population Health Survey (NPHS) is designed to enhance the understanding of the processes affecting health. The survey collects cross-sectional as well as longitudinal data. In 1994/95 the survey interviewed a panel of 17,276 individuals, then returned to interview them a second time in 1996/97. The response rate for these individuals was 96% in 1996/97. Data collection from the panel will continue for up to two decades. For cross-sectional purposes, data were collected for a total of 81,000 household residents in all provinces (except people on Indian reserves or on Canadian Forces bases) in 1996/97.

    This overview illustrates the variety of information available by presenting data on perceived health, chronic conditions, injuries, repetitive strains, depression, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, consultations with medical professionals, use of medications and use of alternative medicine.

    Release date: 1998-07-29
Analysis (2,037)

Analysis (2,037) (60 to 70 of 2,037 results)

  • Journals and periodicals: 11-522-X
    Description: Since 1984, an annual international symposium on methodological issues has been sponsored by Statistics Canada. Proceedings have been available since 1987.
    Release date: 2025-09-08

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100001
    Description: Geoffrey J.C. Hole (or Geoff, as he likes to be called) was born on January 24, 1940 at Shardeloes, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England, to Charles William Hole and Sybil Winifred Hole, formerly Morge. He completed a BSc Honours in Mathematics in 1961, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Statistics at Manchester University the following year. He started his career as a mathematical statistician in London, England, working successively for the National Coal Board (1962-63), the Central Electricity Generating Board (1963-66), and the Electricity Council (1966-67), where his title was Economist. He moved to Canada in 1967 to join the Dominion Bureau of Statistics (DBS) as a survey methodologist. In 1971-72, he was Chief of Census Operations, Methodology and Quality Control Section, and Assistant Coordinator, Socio-Economic Survey Methods Section. He then took a one-year leave of absence to complete an MSc (Econ) in Statistics at the London School of Economics. In 1973, Geoff returned to the DBS, which had become Statistics Canada, as Chief, Methodology Group V, Business Survey Methods Division. In 1974, he was appointed Director, Institutions and Agriculture Survey Methods Division, and, as of 1986, Director, Business Survey Methods Division. His career culminated when he became Director, Social Survey Methods Division, in 1987. He held that position until his retirement, on September 29, 2004. In addition to his long-term involvement at Statistics Canada, including as a member of the Editorial Board of Survey Methodology between 1983 and 1987, Geoff was very active in the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC), serving among others as Chair of the Program Committee for the 1986 Annual Meeting at the Banff Centre, in Alberta, and President of the SSC in 1989-90. He was also Program Chair for a joint conference of the International Association of Survey Statisticians and the International Association for Official Statistics which was held in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in 1998.
    Release date: 2025-06-30

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100002
    Description: Ivan Fellegi is an expert in statistical science and a public servant who was the Chief Statistician of Canada from 1985 to 2008. This article briefly recounts his early life, long-spanning career and influential research contributions. It includes an interview conducted in February 2017 to mark the 60th year of service of Ivan Fellegi’s career at Statistics Canada.
    Release date: 2025-06-30

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100003
    Description: In recent years, there has been a significant interest in machine learning in national statistical offices. Thanks to their flexibility, these methods may prove useful at the nonresponse treatment stage. In this article, we conduct an empirical investigation in order to compare several machine learning procedures in terms of bias and efficiency. In addition to the classical machine learning procedures, we assess the performance of ensemble approaches that make use of different machine learning procedures to produce a set of weights adjusted for nonresponse.
    Release date: 2025-06-30

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100004
    Description: Survey data collection often is plagued by unit and item nonresponse. To reduce reliance on strong assumptions about the missingness mechanisms, statisticians can use information about population marginal distributions known, for example, from censuses or administrative databases. One approach that does so is the Missing Data with Auxiliary Margins, or MD-AM, framework, which uses multiple imputation for both unit and item nonresponse so that survey-weighted estimates accord with the known marginal distributions. However, this framework relies on specifying and estimating a joint distribution for the survey data and nonresponse indicators, which can be computationally and practically daunting in data with many variables of mixed types. We propose two adaptations to the MD-AM framework to simplify the imputation task. First, rather than specifying a joint model for unit respondents’ data, we use random hot deck imputation while still leveraging the known marginal distributions. Second, instead of sampling from conditional distributions implied by the joint model for the missing data due to item nonresponse, we apply multiple imputation by chained equations for item nonresponse before imputation for unit nonresponse. Using simulation studies with nonignorable missingness mechanisms, we demonstrate that the proposed approach can provide more accurate point and interval estimates than models that do not leverage the auxiliary information. We illustrate the approach using data on voter turnout from the U.S. Current Population Survey.
    Release date: 2025-06-30

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100005
    Description: In this paper, we derive a second-order unbiased (or nearly unbiased) mean squared prediction error (MSPE) estimator of the empirical best linear unbiased predictor (EBLUP) of a small area mean for a semi-parametric extension to the well-known Fay-Herriot model. Specifically, we derive our MSPE estimator essentially assuming certain moment conditions on both the sampling errors and random effects distributions. The normality-based Prasad-Rao MSPE estimator has a surprising robustness property in that it remains second-order unbiased under the non-normality of random effects when a simple Prasad-Rao method-of-moments estimator is used for the variance component and the sampling error distribution is normal. We show that the normality-based MSPE estimator is no longer second-order unbiased when the sampling error distribution has non-zero kurtosis or when the Fay-Herriot moment method is used to estimate the variance component, even when the sampling error distribution is normal. Interestingly, when the simple method-of moments estimator is used for the variance component, our proposed MSPE estimator does not require the estimation of kurtosis of the random effects. Results of a simulation study on the accuracy of the proposed MSPE estimator, under non-normality of both sampling and random effects distributions, are also presented.
    Release date: 2025-06-30

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100006
    Description: Survey practitioners have increasingly embraced the benefits of modern machine learning techniques, including classification and regression tree algorithms, in the development of nonresponse adjustments. These methods, which do not require a predefined functional relationship between outcomes and predictors, offer a practical means of conducting variable selection and deriving interpretable structures that link response propensity with explanatory variables. However, when applying these algorithms to survey data, it is common to overlook crucial factors like sampling weights, as well as sample design features such as stratification and clustering. To bridge this shortcoming, we propose an extension of the Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detector (CHAID) approach, and we describe the design-based asymptotic properties of the resulting “survey CHAID” (sCHAID) method. To facilitate the practical use of sCHAID, we incorporate a Rao-Scott correction into the splitting criterion, accounting for the survey design. Using data from the U.S. American Community Survey, we illustrate the use of the method and evaluate its performance through comparisons with existing weighted and unweighted algorithms.
    Release date: 2025-06-30

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100007
    Description: We introduce a novel approach to model-assisted calibration estimation in survey sampling using generalized entropy. The method builds upon recent work by Kwon, Kim and Qiu (2024) and extends it to a model-assisted framework. Unlike traditional calibration techniques, this approach employs a generalized entropy function as the objective for optimization and incorporates a debiasing calibration constraint to ensure design consistency. The proposed estimator is shown to be asymptotically equivalent to an augmented generalized regression (GREG) estimator. It allows for unequal model variance, potentially improving efficiency when the sampling design is informative. The paper presents both design-based and model-based justifications for the method, along with asymptotic properties and variance estimation techniques. Computational aspects are discussed, including an unconstrained optimization approach that facilitates implementation, especially for high-dimensional auxiliary variables. The method’s performance is evaluated through a simulation study, demonstrating its effectiveness in improving estimation efficiency, particularly when the sampling design is informative.
    Release date: 2025-06-30

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100008
    Description: Tightened budgets, continuing decrease of response rates in traditional probability surveys and increasing pressure by users for more timely data, has stimulated research on the use of nonprobability sample data, such as administrative records, web scraping, mobile phone data and voluntary internet surveys, for inference on finite population parameters like means and totals. These data are often easier, faster and cheaper to collect than traditional probability samples. However, a major concern with the use of this kind of data for official statistics is their nonrepresentativeness due to possible selection bias, which if not accounted for properly, could bias the inference. In this article, we review and discuss methods considered in the literature to deal with this problem and propose new methods, distinguishing between methods based on integration of the nonprobability sample with an appropriate probability sample, and methods that base the inference solely on the nonprobability sample. Empirical illustrations, based on simulated data are provided.
    Release date: 2025-06-30

  • Articles and reports: 12-001-X202500100009
    Description: BigData users and the BigData research community are expanding rapidly, while statisticians at large are seemingly becoming divided between those who are enthusiastic and those who are concerned, if not downright hostile. Is BigData also a big step ahead, truly advancing our ability to extract meaningful information and actual knowledge from data? Is BigData underplaying traditional statistical inference as we know it, supplanting survey methodology as a low-cost futuristic option? In this paper I will attempt to unravel the multifaceted relationship bridging BigData to sampling methodology. Starting by reasoning why it should be interesting to look at BigData from a sampling statistician’s perspective, I will delve deeper into the somewhat ambiguous definition of BigData and share some very personal considerations and views on the matter. In the process, several open questions will arise while discussing a personal selection of insights that are traceable through the vast body of statistical literature around BigData and sampling methodology. The discussion will take various angles explored across nine key points, and it will conclude with a forward-looking perspective on a main challenge for future research: addressing the strong assumptions needed to manage deviations from purely randomized data collection.
    Release date: 2025-06-30
Reference (382)

Reference (382) (50 to 60 of 382 results)

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-633-X2017007
    Description:

    The Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB) is a comprehensive source of data that plays a key role in the understanding of the economic behaviour of immigrants. It is the only annual Canadian dataset that allows users to study the characteristics of immigrants to Canada at the time of admission and their economic outcomes and regional (inter-provincial) mobility over a time span of more than 30 years. The IMDB combines administrative files on immigrant admissions and non-permanent resident permits from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) with tax files from the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA). Information is available for immigrant taxfilers admitted since 1980. Tax records for 1982 and subsequent years are available for immigrant taxfilers.

    This report will discuss the IMDB data sources, concepts and variables, record linkage, data processing, dissemination, data evaluation and quality indicators, comparability with other immigration datasets, and the analyses possible with the IMDB.

    Release date: 2017-06-16

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 12-586-X
    Description:

    The Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) serves as the highest-level governance tool for quality management at Statistics Canada. The QAF gives an overview of the quality management and risk mitigation strategies used by the Agency’s program areas. The QAF is used in conjunction with Statistics Canada management practices, such as those described in the Quality Guidelines.

    Release date: 2017-04-21

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 91F0015M2016012
    Description:

    This article provides information on using family-related variables from the microdata files of Canada’s Census of Population. These files exist internally at Statistics Canada, in the Research Data Centres (RDCs), and as public-use microdata files (PUMFs). This article explains certain technical aspects of all three versions, including the creation of multi-level variables for analytical purposes.

    Release date: 2016-12-22

  • Notices and consultations: 92-140-X2016001
    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.

    Release date: 2016-04-01

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X201700014706
    Description:

    Over the last decade, Statistics Canada’s Producer Prices Division has expanded its service producer price indexes program and continued to improve its goods and construction producer price indexes program. While the majority of price indexes are based on traditional survey methods, efforts were made to increase the use of administrative data and alternative data sources in order to reduce burden on our respondents. This paper focuses mainly on producer price programs, but also provides information on the growing importance of alternative data sources at Statistics Canada. In addition, it presents the operational challenges and risks that statistical offices could face when relying more and more on third-party outputs. Finally, it presents the tools being developed to integrate alternative data while collecting metadata.

    Release date: 2016-03-24

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X201700014707
    Description:

    The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a monthly household survey of about 56,000 households that provides information on the Canadian labour market. Audit Trail is a Blaise programming option, for surveys like LFS with Computer Assisted Interviewing (CAI), which creates files containing every keystroke and edit and timestamp of every data collection attempt on all households. Combining such a large survey with such a complete source of paradata opens the door to in-depth data quality analysis but also quickly leads to Big Data challenges. How can meaningful information be extracted from this large set of keystrokes and timestamps? How can it help assess the quality of LFS data collection? The presentation will describe some of the challenges that were encountered, solutions that were used to address them, and results of the analysis on data quality.

    Release date: 2016-03-24

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X201700014708
    Description:

    Statistics Canada’s Household Survey Frames (HSF) Programme provides various universe files that can be used alone or in combination to improve survey design, sampling, collection, and processing in the traditional “need to contact a household model.” Even as surveys are migrating onto these core suite of products, the HSF is starting to plan the changes to infrastructure, organisation, and linkages with other data assets in Statistics Canada that will help enable a shift to increased use of a wide variety of administrative data as input to the social statistics programme. The presentation will provide an overview of the HSF Programme, foundational concepts that will need to be implemented to expand linkage potential, and will identify strategic research being under-taken toward 2021.

    Release date: 2016-03-24

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X201700014710
    Description:

    The Data Warehouse has modernized the way the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (MEA) are produced and analyzed today. Its continuing evolution facilitates the amounts and types of analytical work that is done within the MEA. It brings in the needed element of harmonization and confrontation as the macroeconomic accounts move toward full integration. The improvements in quality, transparency, and timeliness have strengthened the statistics that are being disseminated.

    Release date: 2016-03-24

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X201700014716
    Description:

    Administrative data, depending on its source and original purpose, can be considered a more reliable source of information than survey-collected data. It does not require a respondent to be present and understand question wording, and it is not limited by the respondent’s ability to recall events retrospectively. This paper compares selected survey data, such as demographic variables, from the Longitudinal and International Study of Adults (LISA) to various administrative sources for which LISA has linkage agreements in place. The agreement between data sources, and some factors that might affect it, are analyzed for various aspects of the survey.

    Release date: 2016-03-24

  • Surveys and statistical programs – Documentation: 11-522-X201700014717
    Description:

    Files with linked data from the Statistics Canada, Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS) and tax data can be used to examine the trajectories of students who pursue postsecondary education (PSE) programs and their post-schooling labour market outcomes. On one hand, administrative data on students linked longitudinally can provide aggregate information on student pathways during postsecondary studies such as persistence rates, graduation rates, mobility, etc. On the other hand, the tax data could supplement the PSIS data to provide information on employment outcomes such as average and median earnings or earnings progress by employment sector (industry), field of study, education level and/or other demographic information, year over year after graduation. Two longitudinal pilot studies have been done using administrative data on postsecondary students of Maritimes institutions which have been longitudinally linked and linked to Statistics Canada Ttx data (the T1 Family File) for relevant years. This article first focuses on the quality of information in the administrative data and the methodology used to conduct these longitudinal studies and derive indicators. Second, it will focus on some limitations when using administrative data, rather than a survey, to define some concepts.

    Release date: 2016-03-24