Search

Nonresponse rates in household surveys in the Netherlands are high. As low response rates are generally assumed to increase nonresponse bias, doubts have arisen concerning the value of survey research. The costs of fieldwork have substantially increased in recent years and will increase even more to compensate for the unfavorable response trends. This article describes a survey in which high response rates were attained and which measures were taken to achieve this. It also studies the differences between respondents who are hard to reach and those who are reluctant to participate in a survey. Additional data from a follow-up survey among refusers cast doubt on the assumption that reluctant respondents are similar to refusers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are now a popular tool to inform causal inferences. We discuss how DAGs can also be used to encode theoretical assumptions about nonprobability samples and survey nonresponse and to determine whether population quantities including conditional distributions and regressions can be identified. We describe sources of bias and assumptions for eliminating it in various selection scenarios. We then introduce and analyze graphical representations of multiple selection stages in the data collection process, and highlight the strong assumptions implicit in using only design weights. Furthermore, we show that the common practice of selecting adjustment variables based on correlations with sample selection and outcome variables of interest is ill-justified and that nonresponse weighting when the interest is in causal inference may come at severe costs. Finally, we identify further areas for survey methodology research that can benefit from advances in causal graph theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ex-post harmonization of survey data creates new opportunities for research by extending the geographical and/or time coverage of analyses. Researchers increasingly combine data from different survey projects to analyze them as a single dataset, and while teams engaged in data harmonization continue to expand the information they provide to end users, there are still no commonly agreed standards for the documentation of data processing. Existing harmonization project typically opt for recode scripts that are generally hard to read, modify, and reuse, although some projects make efforts to facilitate verification and reproduction. This paper describes an alternative procedure and a set of simple tools for the exploration, recoding, and documentation of harmonization of survey data, relying on crosswalks. The presented tools are flexible and software-agnostic. The illustrative example uses the programming language R and spreadsheets—both common software choices among social scientists. Harmonization of variables on trust in institutions from four major cross-national survey projects serves as an illustration of the proposed workflow and of opportunities harmonization creates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined interminority attitudes among a large sample (N = 1,987) of two minority groups (of Turkish and Moroccan origin) in the Netherlands. The focus is on their attitudes toward each other, toward a third ethnic minority group, and toward the native majority group. The aim is to simultaneously test theoretical predictions related to group categorization and group identification, intergroup contacts, and endorsement of multiculturalism. More social distance was reported toward the less-similar ethnic outgroup than the more-similar Muslim one. More contact with a particular outgroup was associated with less social distance toward that outgroup. There was evidence for secondary transfer effects of contact in relation to other ethnic minority outgroups, but not in relation to the native majority group. Stronger national identification and stronger endorsement of multiculturalism were both associated with less social distance toward all ethnic outgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined the intergenerational transmission of religiosity within Muslim immigrant families who live in the Netherlands, a rather secular society. We studied whether transmission of religiosity within immigrant families is influenced by warm family relations on the one hand, and integration into the host country on the other hand. Two analyses were carried out on a nationally representative sample of Turkish and Moroccan first- and second-generation immigrants aged 15-45, in the Netherlands. The findings support the hypotheses to some extent: warm family ties are found to facilitate religious transmission but transmission is stronger when parents have different national backgrounds. A stronger transmission is found within families that are stronger embedded in religious communities; however there are large differences between men and women. Our research shows that the influence of parental religiosity cannot be ignored in the study of immigrants' religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]