Analysis

Description:

This paper analyzes the revisions of eight seasonally adjusted labour force series during recession and non-recession periods. The four seasonal adjustment methods applied are X-11 and X-11-ARIMA using either concurrent or forecast seasonal factors. The series are seasonally adjusted with these four methodologies according to both a multiplicative and an additive decomposition model. The results indicate that the X-11-ARIMA concurrent adjustment yields the smallest revisions both during recession and non-recession periods regardless of the decomposition model used.

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This study purports to assess whether there are temporal relationships between Unemployment Insurance Beneficiaries, Total Unemployment, Job Losers and Job Leavers in Canada using univariate and multivariate time series methods. The results indicate that during 1975-82 the Unemployment Insurance Beneficiaries series leads: (1) Total Unemployment by one month and (2) Job Leavers by two months. On the other hand, there are evidence of a feedback relationship between Unemployment Insurance Beneficiaries and Job Losers.

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Thirty basic principles of questionnaire design are presented covering the content, wording, format, and testing of questionnaires. The extent to which the questionnaire is an integral part of the survey is emphasized as is consideration of its relationship with other aspects of survey design.

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Twelve administrative data files are reviewed to determine if some of them could be used to derive migration data, in case the universality of the currently used family allowance files be limited, as a result of federal legislation.

It is found that none of the twelve files have strengths and weaknesses strictly comparable to those of the family allowance files. Further developments of the Health Care, and to a lesser extent the Old Age Security files are highly recommended.

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In Canada, provincial and federal demographers have attempted to use various sets of administrative data to estimate migration flows. This paper presents the development of intra-provincial migration estimates using driver’s licence data in Ontario. An evaluation of these migration estimates has been carried out by comparing with those derived from the income tax data by Statistics Canada. Both files provide equally good and complimentary estimates of intra-provincial migration.

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This paper examines the use of administrative files from Alberta’s Health Care Insurance Plans combined with Vital Statistics data as inputs for estimating population. Results, which are presented and compared with Census data, indicate that Health Care data can be used to produce accurate population estimates at the provincial level and for smaller areas such as census divisions and municipalities.

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The accuracy of small area population estimates derived from a regression based model is heavily dependent on the ability of the indicator data selected to accurately reflect population change. Hence, prior knowledge as to the characteristics of the administrative data used as potential population indicators in a regression model is important. This report summarizes the strengths and weaknesses associated with the use of residential hydro accounts in the British Columbia regression based population estimation model.

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This paper describes a method of producing current age/sex specific population estimates for small areas utilizing as inputs total population estimates, birth and death data and estimates of historical residual net migration. An evaluation based on the 1981 Census counts for census divisions and school districts in British Columbia is presented.

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A methodology has been developed for producing population estimates by single years of age and sex for small areas (census divisions and census metropolitan areas). To assure reliability, the estimates by single years of age are grouped into five years and only these grouped data are recomended for dissemination. They are based on the age-sex composition of population from the last census, births by sex, deaths by single years of age and sex, estimates of migration by age and sex, and counts of family allowance recipients in the age group 1-14 years.

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Statistics Canada’s current methodologies forestimating the population of census divisions and census metropolitan areas are the regression-nested and component methods. This paper presents the experience with these estimates for the period 1981 to 1985, focusing on problems encountered with the input data on family allowance recipients.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This product presents data on the Sustainable Development Goals. They present an overview of the 17 Goals through infographics by leveraging data currently available to report on Canada’s progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This course is intended for Government of Canada employees who would like to learn about evaluating the quality of data for a particular use. Whether you are a new employee interested in learning the basics, or an experienced subject matter expert looking to refresh your skills, this course is here to help.

Description: This video explains the key concepts of different levels of aggregation of income data such as household and family income; income concepts derived from key income variables such as adjusted income and equivalence scale; and statistics used for income data such as median and average income, quartiles, quintiles, deciles and percentiles.

Description: This video builds on concepts introduced in the other videos on income. It explains key low-income concepts - Market Basket Measure (MBM), Low income measure (LIM) and Low-income cut-offs (LICO) and the indicators associated with these concepts such as the low-income gap and the low-income ratio. These concepts are used in analysis of the economic well-being of the population.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description:

Gathering, exploring, analyzing and interpreting data are essential steps in producing information that benefits society, the economy and the environment. In this video, we will discuss the importance of considering data ethics throughout the process of producing statistical information.

As a pre-requisite to this video, make sure to watch the video titled “Data Ethics: An introduction” also available in Statistics Canada’s data literacy training catalogue.

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In this video, you will learn the answers to the following questions: What are the different types of error? What are the types of error that lead to statistical bias? Where during the data journey statistical bias can occur?

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Gathering, exploring, analyzing and interpreting data are essential steps in producing information that benefits society, the economy and the environment. To properly conduct these processes, data ethics ethics must be upheld in order to ensure the appropriate use of data.

Description: In this discussion, I will present some additional aspects of three major areas of survey theory developed or studied by Jean-Claude Deville: calibration, balanced sampling and the generalized weight-share method.

Description: Jean-Claude Deville, who passed away in October 2021, was one of the most influential researchers in the field of survey statistics over the past 40 years. This article traces some of his contributions that have had a profound impact on both survey theory and practice. This article will cover the topics of balanced sampling using the cube method, calibration, the weight-sharing method, the development of variance expressions of complex estimators using influence function and quota sampling.

Description: Sample surveys, as a tool for policy development and evaluation and for scientific, social and economic research, have been employed for over a century. In that time, they have primarily served as tools for collecting data for enumerative purposes. Estimation of these characteristics has been typically based on weighting and repeated sampling, or design-based, inference. However, sample data have also been used for modelling the unobservable processes that gave rise to the finite population data. This type of use has been termed analytic, and often involves integrating the sample data with data from secondary sources.

Alternative approaches to inference in these situations, drawing inspiration from mainstream statistical modelling, have been strongly promoted. The principal focus of these alternatives has been on allowing for informative sampling. Modern survey sampling, though, is more focussed on situations where the sample data are in fact part of a more complex set of data sources all carrying relevant information about the process of interest. When an efficient modelling method such as maximum likelihood is preferred, the issue becomes one of how it should be modified to account for both complex sampling designs and multiple data sources. Here application of the Missing Information Principle provides a clear way forward.

In this paper I review how this principle has been applied to resolve so-called “messy” data analysis issues in sampling. I also discuss a scenario that is a consequence of the rapid growth in auxiliary data sources for survey data analysis. This is where sampled records from one accessible source or register are linked to records from another less accessible source, with values of the response variable of interest drawn from this second source, and where a key output is small area estimates for the response variable for domains defined on the first source.

Description: The validity of survival estimates from cancer registry data depends, in part, on the identification of the deaths of deceased cancer patients. People whose deaths are missed seemingly live on forever and are informally referred to as “immortals”, and their presence in registry data can result in inflated survival estimates. This study assesses the issue of immortals in the Canadian Cancer Registry (CCR) using a recently proposed method that compares the survival of long-term survivors of cancers for which “statistical” cure has been reported with that of similar people from the general population.

Description: This paper spans the academic work and estimation strategies used in national statistics offices. It addresses the issue of producing fine, grid-level geography estimates for Canada by exploring the measurement of subprovincial and subterritorial gross domestic product using Yukon as a test case.

Description: Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) is an analytical tool developed by Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) to support the development of responsive and inclusive initiatives, including policies, programs, and other initiatives. This information sheet presents the usefulness of GBA Plus for disaggregating and analyzing data to identify the groups most affected by certain issues, such as overqualification.

Description: The Canadian Income Survey (CIS) has introduced improvements to the methods and systems used to produce income estimates with the release of its 2021 reference year estimates. This paper describes the changes and presents the approximate net result of these changes on income estimates using data for 2019 and 2020. The changes described in this paper highlight the ways in which data quality has been improved while producing minimal impact on key CIS estimates and trends.

Description: Recent work in survey domain estimation allows for estimation of population domain means under a priori assumptions expressed in terms of linear inequality constraints. For example, it might be known that the population means are non-decreasing along ordered domains. Imposing the constraints has been shown to provide estimators with smaller variance and tighter confidence intervals. In this paper we consider a formal test of the null hypothesis that all the constraints are binding, versus the alternative that at least one constraint is non-binding. The test of constant versus increasing domain means is a special case. The power of the test is substantially better than the test with the same null hypothesis and an unconstrained alternative. The new test is used with data from the National Survey of College Graduates, to show that salaries are positively related to the subject’s father’s educational level, across fields of study and over several years of cohorts.

Description: We consider regression analysis in the context of data integration. To combine partial information from external sources, we employ the idea of model calibration which introduces a “working” reduced model based on the observed covariates. The working reduced model is not necessarily correctly specified but can be a useful device to incorporate the partial information from the external data. The actual implementation is based on a novel application of the information projection and model calibration weighting. The proposed method is particularly attractive for combining information from several sources with different missing patterns. The proposed method is applied to a real data example combining survey data from Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and big data from National Health Insurance Sharing Service in Korea.

Description: To improve the precision of inferences and reduce costs there is considerable interest in combining data from several sources such as sample surveys and administrative data. Appropriate methodology is required to ensure satisfactory inferences since the target populations and methods for acquiring data may be quite different. To provide improved inferences we use methodology that has a more general structure than the ones in current practice. We start with the case where the analyst has only summary statistics from each of the sources. In our primary method, uncertain pooling, it is assumed that the analyst can regard one source, survey r, as the single best choice for inference. This method starts with the data from survey r and adds data from those other sources that are shown to form clusters that include survey r. We also consider Dirichlet process mixtures, one of the most popular nonparametric Bayesian methods. We use analytical expressions and the results from numerical studies to show properties of the methodology.

Description: This series provides detailed documentation on income developments, including survey design issues, data quality evaluation and exploratory research.

Description: Since 1984, an annual international symposium on methodological issues has been sponsored by Statistics Canada. Proceedings have been available since 1987.

Description: Papers in this series provide background discussions of the methods used to develop data for economic, health, and social analytical studies at Statistics Canada. They are intended to provide readers with information on the statistical methods, standards and definitions used to develop databases for research purposes. All papers in this series have undergone peer and institutional review to ensure that they conform to Statistics Canada's mandate and adhere to generally accepted standards of good professional practice.

Description: The journal publishes articles dealing with various aspects of statistical development relevant to a statistical agency, such as design issues in the context of practical constraints, use of different data sources and collection techniques, total survey error, survey evaluation, research in survey methodology, time series analysis, seasonal adjustment, demographic studies, data integration, estimation and data analysis methods, and general survey systems development. The emphasis is placed on the development and evaluation of specific methodologies as applied to data collection or the data themselves.

Description: This report summarizes the annual achievements of the Methodology Research and Development Program (MRDP) sponsored by the Modern Statistical Methods and Data Science Branch at Statistics Canada. This program covers research and development activities in statistical methods with potentially broad application in the agency’s statistical programs; these activities would otherwise be less likely to be carried out during the provision of regular methodology services to those programs. The MRDP also includes activities that provide support in the application of past successful developments in order to promote the use of the results of research and development work. Selected prospective research activities are also presented.

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The Geography working paper series is intended to stimulate discussion on a variety of topics covering conceptual, methodological or technical work to support the development and dissemination of the division's data, products and services. Readers of the series are encouraged to contact the Geography Division with comments and suggestions.

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Historical works allow readers to peer into the past, not only to satisfy our curiosity about “the way things were,” but also to see how far we’ve come, and to learn from the past. For Statistics Canada, such works are also opportunities to commemorate the agency’s contributions to Canada and its people, and serve as a reminder that an institution such as this continues to evolve each and every day.

On the occasion of Statistics Canada’s 100th anniversary in 2018, Standing on the shoulders of giants: History of Statistics Canada: 1970 to 2008, builds on the work of two significant publications on the history of the agency, picking up the story in 1970 and carrying it through the next 36 years, until 2008. To that end, when enough time has passed to allow for sufficient objectivity, it will again be time to document the agency’s next chapter as it continues to tell Canada’s story in numbers.

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The Record Linkage Project Process Model (RLPPM) was developed by Statistics Canada to identify the processes and activities involved in record linkage. The RLPPM applies to linkage projects conducted at the individual and enterprise level using diverse data sources to create new data sources to meet analytical and operational needs.

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This document briefly describes Demosim, the microsimulation population projection model, how it works as well as its methods and data sources. It is a methodological complement to the analytical products produced using Demosim.

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This publication is a catalogue of strategies and mechanisms that a statistical organization should consider adopting, according to its particular context. This compendium is based on lessons learned and best practices of leadership and management of statistical agencies within the scope of Statistics Canada’s International Statistical Fellowship Program (ISFP). It contains four broad sections including, characteristics of an effective national statistical system; core management practices; improving, modernizing and finding efficiencies; and, strategies to better inform and engage key stakeholders.