135 – Nonresponse Adjustment and Weighting
Empirical Study on the Size of Nonresponse Bias
Ann-Marie Flygare
Örebro University
Dan Hedlin
Stockholm University
There are expressions for nonresponse bias, all of which require population quantities. In one expression for nonresponse bias, due to Bethlehem (1988, 2009), the bias is approximately equal to a function of the population covariance between the study variable and the response propensity (probability) and the population mean of the propensities. The covariance is hard to estimate (due to nonresponse). To empirically examine the covariance and the nonresponse bias, we have done two studies where the sample values of survey variables are known and the response propensities are estimated. The first study is a mail survey of a population of residents in the city of Solna in Sweden, 20-74 years of age. The questionnaire consists of items on marital status and income; we have obtained the true values of those from the Swedish Tax Agency. We also know birth country, the type of area of residents, specific age and gender of each sampled individual. The second study is a web survey at Stockholm University, the population is faculty employees at the department of psychology. This survey is a census and the variables that we regard as our study variables are income from university and total income. The true values of income from university are given by the HR-department and total income from the Tax Agency.