Design and implementation of a high-quality probability sample: Lessons learnt

Migration research is one of the most rapidly developing fields of demography in Europe. To develop an empirically-based theoretical understanding of immigration we need high-quality representative data. However, surveys of immigrants often are confronted with challenges of coverage, representativeness and response rates and cannot face the high costs needed to overcome them. It has been argued that, when registered data is not available, the highest quality approach is probability sampling with household screening.

The aim of this paper is to report on a high-quality survey of this kind: The UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). The survey started in 2009 with an overrepresentation of ethnic minorities. Because of the shrinking of some groups due to sample attrition and in order to represent the households that entered after 2009, it was decided to introduce a new sample that would cover ethnic minority groups and recent immigrants- the Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Boost…