On the simulation of complex universes in the case of applying the german microcensus

Abstract

The aim of the DACSEIS project is to deliver recommendations on the use of variance estimators under complex survey designs in the presence of non-response. Since mathematical comparisons on the efficiency of variance estimation methods in this field are generally unavailable or lead to irrelevant results, adequate simulation studies have to be carried out that are based on realistic data sets. To be able to carry out a simulation study in the frame of complex designs one has to draw samples from a universe respecting for the true sampling design. However, in many cases, no data or only outdated data are available for the universe which leads to the need of adequately generating a micro data set from the sample.

Within this paper, a procedure of generating the universe for the German microcensus, which is a 1 sample of the population living in Germany, will be presented. The procedure allows for an adequate consideration of the individual information on a limited data set and can therefore be used as a basis for the simulations on variance estimation methods on the German microcensus data.