While unit or questionnaire nonresponse can seriously degrade the quality of any survey, nonparticipation is particularly threatening to a longitudinal survey like the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participartion (SIPP). To minimize the potential biasing effects of second and subsequent wave attrition from SIPP panels, staff at the Census Bureau perform weight adjustments. These adjustments are designed to make the self-selected subsample of longitudinal respondents more representative of the initial wave one sample. The Bureau's SIPP weight adjustments take the form of post-stratum or weighting class specific multipliers applied to the wave one base sample weight. The associated weighting classes are defined by collapsing cells in a multi-way cross classification of categorical variables until each resulting cell satisfies two conditions: cells are collapsed until the sample size and the estimated response propensity are greater than predefined thresholds.

Others in Series

Working Paper

Mover Nonresponse Adjustment Research for the SIPP

1993

This paper focuses on new compensation approaches to our longitudinal weighting procedures designed to reduce nonresponse bias.

Working Paper

Use of Administrative Data in SIPP Longitudinal Estimation

1993

The SIPP currently uses cross-classifications of age, race, sex, and householder/nonhouseholder status as controls in longitudinal estimation.

Working Paper

Oversampling in Panel Surveys

August 1994

Survey statisticians use oversampling to reduce variances of key statistics of a target sub-population.

Related Information

Survey of Income and Program Participation Working Papers

Page Last Revised - October 8, 2021

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