Analysis

Description:

The paper attempts to evaluate the impact of non-response adjustment by rotation groups on rotation group bias in the estimates from the Canadian Labour Force Survey. Results on bias and non-response characteristics are presented and discussed. An index used to measure rotation group bias is given and some empirical results are analyzed.

Description:

Survey data collected by statistical agencies is most likely to be processed through to the tabulation stage by these agencies. The computer programs associated with this processing are also most likely tailored to the particular design and variables used. The statistics computed from such surveys typically range from simple descriptive totals and means to these required for analytic studies such as comparison of domains, regression analysis and contingency tables analysis. This paper describes a computer program which computes these statistics and their associated sampling errors for commonly used sampling designs.

Description:

The problems associated with making analytical inferences from data based on complex sample designs are reviewed. A basic issue is the definition of the parameter of interest and whether it is a superpopulation model parameter or a finite population parameter. General methods based on a generalized Wald Statistics and its modification or on modifications of classical test statistics are discussed. More detail is given on specific methods-on linear models and regression and on categorical data analysis.

Description:

This paper presents an outline of the nonresponse research which is carried out at the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics. The phenomenon of nonresponse is put into a general frame-work. The extent of nonresponse is indicated with figures from a number of CBS-surveys. The use of auxiliary variables is discussed as a means for obtaining information about nonrespondents. These variables can be used either to characterize nonrespondents or as stratification variables in adjustment procedures.

Adjustment for nonresponse bias by means of subgroup weighting is considered in more detail. Finally, the last section lists a number of other methods which also aim at reduction of the bias.

Description:

The problem of specifying and estimating the variance of estimated parameters based on complex sample designs from finite populations is considered. The results of this paper are particularly useful when the parameter estimators cannot be defined explicitly as a function of other statistics from the sample. It is shown how these results can be applied to linear regression, logistic regression and log linear contingency table models.

Description:

The author briefly reviews the factors determining the production of health statistics in Canada, with particular attention to the different sources of data and to the long-standing co-operation among the many agencies involved in the gathering of health-related information.

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This paper presents results of an empirical study on fitting log-linear models to data on estimates of characteristics and their coefficients of variation (CV) from the Canadian Labour Force Survey. The characteristics were classified into groups on the basis of design effects and models were fitted to data on estimates of characteristic totals and their CVs over twelve month period. The models can be used in situations where estimates of CV are needed for new characteristics, and for providing more precise estimates of reliability of estimates based on past data. The problem of evaluation of fit of the models is considered.

Description:

The methodology of the For-hire Trucking Survey is discussed in this paper. This survey provides good examples of administrative and operational constraints faced by survey statisticians and field data collection teams.

Description:

An aspect of surveys not always given adequate consideration is maintenance.

The scope and importance of survey maintenance are discussed and a case is made for a more scientific methodological approach. Practical applications to various stages of surveys are illustrated by examples from the Canadian Labour Force Survey.

Description:

In surveys a response may be incomplete or some items may be inconsistent or, as in the case of two-phase sampling, items may be unavailable. In these cases it may be expedient to impute values for the missing items. While imputation is not a particularly good solution to any specific estimation problem, it does permit the production of arbitrary estimates in a consistent way.

The survey statistician may have to cope with a mixture of numerical and categorical items, subject to a variety of constraints. He should evaluate his technique, especially with respect to bias. He should make sure that imputed items are clearly identified and summary reports produced.

A variety of imputation techniques in current use is described and discussed, with particular reference to the practical problems involved.

Description:

A comparison of the employment characteristics of women born in the early years of the baby boom with those of women born in the later years.

Description:

There has been growing interest in recent years about the scope of tourism in Canada. In response to this demand for information, Statistics Canada has developed a Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) which provides some answers to questions such as: Which industries constitute 'the tourism industry'? What are the industry's gross domestic product (GDP) and employment rates? And what is the extent of tourism-related expenditures?

This article reports on the research that Statistics Canada has undertaken as part of an ongoing examination of the tourism industry.

Description:

Revised estimates of the Income and Expenditure Accounts (IEA) covering 1990 to 1993 have been released along with the estimates for the first quarter of 1994. These revised estimates reflect the most current source data and seasonal patterns. The annual revision of the different parts of the System of National Accounts is an integrated process. Revised estimates of two other parts of the system, the Balance of International Payments and Financial Flow Accounts, have been released simultaneously. Corresponding revisions to the monthly estimates of the gross domestic product (GDP), by industry and to the Input-Output Accounts at current and constant prices will be available at the end of August.

The first section of this paper reviews the current revisions to the GDP and the main aggregates. The second section analyses the revision patterns of selected income and expenditure aggregates of the GDP over the period 1980 to 1993. For further information on sources, methods and definitions employed in the IE A, refer to the Guide to the Income and Expenditure Accounts, Catalogue no. 13-603E, no. 1.

Description:

Revised estimates of the Income and Expenditure Accounts covering 1989 to 1992 have been released along with the estimates for the first quarter of 1993. These revised estimates reflect the most current source data and seasonal patterns. The annual revision of the different parts of the System of the National Accounts is an integrated process. As such, revised estimates of two other parts of the system -- the Balance of International Payments and Financial Flow Accounts -- have been released simultaneously. Corresponding revisions to the monthly estimates of Gross Domestic Product by Industry and to the Input-Output Accounts at current and constant prices are also available.

Description:

This overview highlights the results from the survey of Work Arrangements.

Description:

A glance at the wage trends of unionized workers over the last 13 years.

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An examination of trends in unemployment rate data as far back as 1921.

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Self-employment is an increasingly popular form of non-standard work.

Description:

How does the Work Sharing Program prevent layoffs?

Description:

In 1989, the Survey of Literacy Skills Used in Daily Activities was conducted to assess the reading and numerous skills of Canada's adult population. This article reports the survey's main findings.

Description: Retaining and recruiting young skilled workers are important for any community, but perhaps even more so for communities where the main language spoken is a minority official language. This article informs the issue by calculating the share of youth who grew up in a province and eventually obtained a postsecondary education, but who left to work in another part of the country (termed “skill loss”). Likewise, the article also looks at young postsecondary graduates who entered a province to work, as a share of that province’s initial population of homegrown young postsecondary graduates (termed “skill gain”).

Description: Businesses have faced numerous challenges since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health restrictions on business and personal activities aimed at stopping the spread of the virus were associated with a slowing of economic activity. This article examines how new businesses that entered after the beginning of the pandemic fared compared with previous entry cohorts.

Description: On average, individuals who own their dwelling report higher satisfaction with their dwelling, neighbourhood and life than renters. These differences may reflect a positive causal impact of ownership on satisfaction. However, these differences could also reflect compositional effects, such as differences in household, dwelling and neighbourhood characteristics. Using the 2021 Canadian Housing Survey, this study provides a comparison of renters’ and owners’ reported dwelling, neighbourhood and life satisfaction accounting for compositional effects.

Description: Approximately one in four individuals in Canada is currently or has been a landed immigrant or permanent resident. From 2016 to 2021, about 1.3 million new immigrants arrived in Canada and accounted for 80% of the growth in the labour force. Alongside increases in immigrants, there has been a rise in same-sex couples within Canada. This study explores select sociodemographic and economic characteristics of immigrants in same-sex couples compared with their counterparts in opposite-sex couples from 2000 to 2020.

Description: This study presents an updated sociodemographic profile of children aged 0 to 14 years with affirmative responses largely based on parent reports to the questions on the 2021 Census long-form questionnaire about difficulties with activities of daily living.

Description: Inspired by the two excellent discussions of our paper, we offer some new insights and developments into the problem of estimating participation probabilities for non-probability samples. First, we propose an improvement of the method of Chen, Li and Wu (2020), based on best linear unbiased estimation theory, that more efficiently leverages the available probability and non-probability sample data. We also develop a sample likelihood approach, similar in spirit to the method of Elliott (2009), that properly accounts for the overlap between both samples when it can be identified in at least one of the samples. We use best linear unbiased prediction theory to handle the scenario where the overlap is unknown. Interestingly, our two proposed approaches coincide in the case of unknown overlap. Then, we show that many existing methods can be obtained as a special case of a general unbiased estimating function. Finally, we conclude with some comments on nonparametric estimation of participation probabilities.

Description: We provide comparisons among three parametric methods for the estimation of participation probabilities and some brief comments on homogeneous groups and post-stratification.

Description: Beaumont, Bosa, Brennan, Charlebois and Chu (2024) propose innovative model selection approaches for estimation of participation probabilities for non-probability sample units. We focus our discussion on the choice of a likelihood and parameterization of the model, which are key for the effectiveness of the techniques developed in the paper. We consider alternative likelihood and pseudo-likelihood based methods for estimation of participation probabilities and present simulations implementing and comparing the AIC based variable selection. We demonstrate that, under important practical scenarios, the approach based on a likelihood formulated over the observed pooled non-probability and probability samples performed better than the pseudo-likelihood based alternatives. The contrast in sensitivity of the AIC criteria is especially large for small probability sample sizes and low overlap in covariates domains.

Description: Non-probability samples are being increasingly explored in National Statistical Offices as an alternative to probability samples. However, it is well known that the use of a non-probability sample alone may produce estimates with significant bias due to the unknown nature of the underlying selection mechanism. Bias reduction can be achieved by integrating data from the non-probability sample with data from a probability sample provided that both samples contain auxiliary variables in common. We focus on inverse probability weighting methods, which involve modelling the probability of participation in the non-probability sample. First, we consider the logistic model along with pseudo maximum likelihood estimation. We propose a variable selection procedure based on a modified Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) that properly accounts for the data structure and the probability sampling design. We also propose a simple rank-based method of forming homogeneous post-strata. Then, we extend the Classification and Regression Trees (CART) algorithm to this data integration scenario, while again properly accounting for the probability sampling design. A bootstrap variance estimator is proposed that reflects two sources of variability: the probability sampling design and the participation model. Our methods are illustrated using Statistics Canada’s crowdsourcing and survey data.

Description: In this rejoinder, I address the comments from the discussants, Dr. Takumi Saegusa, Dr. Jae-Kwang Kim and Ms. Yonghyun Kwon. Dr. Saegusa’s comments about the differences between the conditional exchangeability (CE) assumption for causal inferences versus the CE assumption for finite population inferences using nonprobability samples, and the distinction between design-based versus model-based approaches for finite population inference using nonprobability samples, are elaborated and clarified in the context of my paper. Subsequently, I respond to Dr. Kim and Ms. Kwon’s comprehensive framework for categorizing existing approaches for estimating propensity scores (PS) into conditional and unconditional approaches. I expand their simulation studies to vary the sampling weights, allow for misspecified PS models, and include an additional estimator, i.e., scaled adjusted logistic propensity estimator (Wang, Valliant and Li (2021), denoted by sWBS). In my simulations, it is observed that the sWBS estimator consistently outperforms or is comparable to the other estimators under the misspecified PS model. The sWBS, as well as WBS or ABS described in my paper, do not assume that the overlapped units in both the nonprobability and probability reference samples are negligible, nor do they require the identification of overlap units as needed by the estimators proposed by Dr. Kim and Ms. Kwon.

Description: The papers in this series cover a variety of technical topics related to the Centre for Labour Market Information programs, such as the Labour Force Survey, the Survey of Employment Payrolls and Hours, the Employment insurance Coverage Survey, the Employment Insurance Statistics program as well as data from administrative sources.

Description: The newsletter offers information aimed at three main groups, businesses (small to medium), communities and ethno-cultural groups/communities. Articles and outreach materials will assist their understanding of national and local data from the many relevant sources found on the Statistics Canada website.

Description:

Health Reports, published by the Health Analysis Division of Statistics Canada, is a peer-reviewed journal of population health and health services research. It is designed for a broad audience that includes health professionals, researchers, policymakers, and the general public. The journal publishes articles of wide interest that contain original and timely analyses of national or provincial/territorial surveys or administrative databases. New articles are published electronically each month.

Health Reports had an impact factor of 5.0 for 2022 and a five-year impact factor of 5.6. All articles are indexed in PubMed. Our online catalogue is free and receives more than 700,000 visits per year. External submissions are welcome.

Description: Every year, Statistics Canada collects data from hundreds of surveys. As the amount of data gathered increases, Statistics Canada has introduced infographics to help people, business owners, academics, and management at all levels, understand key information derived from the data. Infographics can be used to quickly communicate a message, to simplify the presentation of large amounts of data, to see data patterns and relationships, and to monitor changes in variables over time.

These infographics will provide a quick overview of Statistics Canada survey data.

Description: This publication brings together and analyzes a wide range of data sources in order to provide information on various aspects of Canadian society, including labour, income, education, social, and demographic issues, that affect the lives of Canadians.

Description: The papers published in the Analysis in Brief analytical series shed light on current economic issues. Aimed at a general audience, they cover a wide range of topics including National Accounts, business enterprises, trade, transportation, agriculture, the environment, manufacturing, science and technology, services, etc.

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 Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series provides for the circulation of research conducted by Analytical Studies and Modelling Branch staff and collaborators. The Series is intended to stimulate discussion on a variety of topics, such as labour, immigration, education and skills, income mobility, well-being, aging, firm dynamics, productivity, economic transitions, and economic geography. Readers of the Series are encouraged to contact the authors with their comments and suggestions. All the papers in the Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series go through institutional and peer review to ensure that they conform to Statistics Canada's mandate as a governmental statistical agency and adhere to generally accepted standards of good professional practice.

Description: Economic and Social Reports includes in-depth research, brief analyses, and current economic updates on a variety of topics, such as labour, immigration, education and skills, income mobility, well-being, aging, firm dynamics, productivity, economic transitions, and economic geography. All the papers are institutionally reviewed and the research and analytical papers undergo peer review to ensure that they conform to Statistics Canada's mandate as a governmental statistical agency and adhere to generally accepted standards of good professional practice.

Description: The Prices Analytical Series provides research and analysis pertaining to price indices. The Analytical series is intended to stimulate discussion on a variety of topics related to the analysis of the evolution of prices through time or space.