Weighting Strategy for Understanding Society

Abstract

This paper outlines the strategy for the development and provision of analysis weights for Understanding Society. The strategy is placed within the context of a number of practical and statistical issues in the context of a survey with such a complex design, involving multiple waves, samples, instruments and analysis bases. A fundamental issue considered is for which data subsets weights should be produced, where a subset may be defined by a combination of waves, instruments and samples. Secondary issues concern the auxiliary data for non-response adjustment and post-stratification, the modelling methods, and the subsequent weight calculation methods. There are also important considerations relating to documentation, access and user support.