Representing local area adjustments by reweighting of households - ARCHIVED

Suppose that undercount rates in a census have been estimated and that block-level estimates of the undercount have been computed. It may then be desirable to create a new roster of households incorporating the estimated omissions. It is proposed here that such a roster be created by weighting the enumerated households. The household weights are constrained by linear equations representing the desired total counts of persons in each estimation class and the desired total count of households. Weights are then calculated that satisfy the constraints while making the fitted table as close as possible to the raw data. The procedure may be regarded as an extension of the standard “raking” methodology to situations where the constraints do not refer to the margins of a contingency table. Continuous as well as discrete covariates may be used in the adjustment, and it is possible to check directly whether the constraints can be satisfied. Methods are proposed for the use of weighted data for various Census purposes, and for adjustment of covariate information on characteristics of omitted households, such as income, that are not directly considered in undercount estimation.