Independent Dimensions of Sociodemographic Variability in Neighborhood Characteristics at the Tract Level of the 2000 Census

Trudy Cameron () and Graham D. Crawford ()
Additional contact information
Graham D. Crawford: KBR, Inc.

University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers from University of Oregon Economics Department

Abstract: Researchers using survey data must always deal with the problem of nonignorable non-response among the intended sample for a survey. Often, nothing more is known about a non-respondent individual or household other than the geographic location of their primary residence. However, this information can often be linked to the census sociodemographic characteristics of the approximate locality of each intended sample member. For example, in the absence of individual-specific data, some progress can be made in the task of sample selection correction by utilizing Census tract level information. We report upon the construction of a set of fifteen orthogonal factors that capture 88.7% of the variability across Census tracts in the 2000 Census. Since these factors are calculated using the universe of tracts, they may be interpreted as “population†measures, rather than sampling estimates. Our fifteen factors are available to other researchers, and can be accessed using a password available from the authors. In addition to their utility for survey sample selection corrections, this set of variables may also be useful as controls for neighborhood level heterogeneity in ordinary modeling contexts.

Keywords: sample selection correction; mail survey; census tracts; factor analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 C42 C81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35
Date: 2003-12-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://economics.uoregon.edu/papers/UO-2010-12_Cam ... rd_Tract_Factors.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ore:uoecwp:2010-12

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers from University of Oregon Economics Department Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bill Harbaugh ().