IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hdl/wpaper/1009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The standard error of estimates based on EU-SILC. An exploration through the Europe 2020 poverty indicators

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Goedemé

Abstract

Currently, the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is the single most important data source for cross-national comparative research on income and living conditions in the European Union. As EU-SILC consists of a sample of European households, point estimates should be accompanied by appropriate standard errors and confidence intervals. This is especially so if indicators are constructed for measuring progress towards pre-defined targets such as those of the Europe 2020 strategy. All too often this has been neglected in European poverty research and official publications. In contrast, this paper pays explicit attention to the calculation of standard errors and confidence intervals. Standard errors are strongly dependent on the sample design. Therefore, accurate information on the sample design is crucial, especially for a database like EU-SILC which contains data on about 30 European countries which employ different complex sample designs. However, information on the sample design is incomplete in the EU-SILC User Database for data confidentiality reasons and there are several options for handling this lack of information. In this paper, we document the sample designs used in EU-SILC and compare the information available through different sources, namely the Quality Reports, the User Database and a specific dataset containing additional information about the sample design prepared by Eurostat. Furthermore, on the basis of the specific dataset prepared by Eurostat, we explore which variables are best used when analysing EU-SILC for adequately computing standard errors. We illustrate the importance of various assumptions with regard to the sample design by presenting results for the official Europe 2020 poverty indicators. It is shown that neglecting the sample design can lead to a serious underestimation of the standard errors. In addition, it is discussed how researchers using EU-SILC could best take account of the sample design for appropriately estimating standard errors.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Goedemé, 2010. "The standard error of estimates based on EU-SILC. An exploration through the Europe 2020 poverty indicators," Working Papers 1009, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    • Handle: RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/oldcontent/container2453/files/CSB%20WP%202010/CSB_WP_10_09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean-Yves Duclos & Abdelkrim Araar, 2006. "Poverty and Equity," Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being, Springer, number 978-0-387-33318-2, November.
    2. Ian Preston, 1995. "Sampling Distributions of Relative Poverty Statistics," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 44(1), pages 91-99, March.
    3. Joan R. Rodgers & John L. Rodgers, 1993. "Chronic Poverty in the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 28(1), pages 25-54.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joachim Frick & Kristina Krell, 2011. "Einkommensmessungen in Haushaltspanelstudien für Deutschland: Ein Vergleich von EU-SILC und SOEP," AStA Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv, Springer;Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft - German Statistical Society, vol. 5(3), pages 221-248, December.
    2. Jekaterina Navicke & Olga Rastrigina & Holly Sutherland, 2014. "Nowcasting Indicators of Poverty Risk in the European Union: A Microsimulation Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 119(1), pages 101-119, October.
    3. Leventi, Chrysa & Katsimi, Margarita & Tsakloglou, Panos, 2022. "Going regional: distributional effect of taxes and transfers in six EU countries and the UK," Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis Working Paper Series CEMPA4/22, Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    4. Tim Goedemé, 2013. "How much Confidence can we have in EU-SILC? Complex Sample Designs and the Standard Error of the Europe 2020 Poverty Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(1), pages 89-110, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tim Goedemé, 2013. "How much Confidence can we have in EU-SILC? Complex Sample Designs and the Standard Error of the Europe 2020 Poverty Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 110(1), pages 89-110, January.
    2. Tim Goedemé & Karel Van den Bosch & Lina Salanauskaite & Gerlinde Verbist, 2013. "Testing the Statistical Significance of Microsimulation Results: Often Easier than You Think. A Technical Note," ImPRovE Working Papers 13/10, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    3. Luis Huesca & Abdelkrim Araar, 2014. "Progressivity of Taxes and Transfers: the Mexican Case 2012," Cahiers de recherche 1407, CIRPEE.
    4. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 2006. "Liberté ou égalité?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 82(4), pages 441-476, décembre.
    5. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Araar, Abdelkrim & Giles, John, 2010. "Chronic and transient poverty: Measurement and estimation, with evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 266-277, March.
    6. Manos Matsaganis & Chrysa Leventi, 2011. "The distributional impact of the crisis in Greece," DEOS Working Papers 1124, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    7. Mussa, Richard, 2010. "Poverty and Inequality in Standards of Living in Malawi: Does Religious Affiliation Matter?," MPRA Paper 24438, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Nora Lustig, 2017. "Fiscal Policy, Income Redistribution and Poverty Reduction in Low and Middle Income Countries," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 54, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    9. Russell Davidson & Jean-Yves Duclos, 2000. "Statistical Inference for Stochastic Dominance and for the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(6), pages 1435-1464, November.
    10. Alkire, Sabina & Roche, José Manuel & Vaz, Ana, 2017. "Changes Over Time in Multidimensional Poverty: Methodology and Results for 34 Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 232-249.
    11. Alkire, Sabina & Santos, Maria Emma, 2014. "Measuring Acute Poverty in the Developing World: Robustness and Scope of the Multidimensional Poverty Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 251-274.
    12. de Figueiredo, Erik Alencar & Ziegelmann, Flávio Augusto, 2010. "Estimating income mobility using census data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(21), pages 4897-4903.
    13. Leventi, Chrysa & Matsaganis, Manos, 2013. "Distributional implications of the crisis in Greece in 2009-2012," EUROMOD Working Papers EM14/13, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    14. Richard Mussa, 2013. "Spatial Comparisons of Poverty and Inequality in Living Standards in Malawi," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(2), pages 192-210, June.
    15. Ragui Assaad & Caroline Krafft & John Roemer & Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, 2016. "Inequality of Opportunity in Income and Consumption: the Middle East and North Africa Region in Comparative Perspective," Working Papers 1003, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2016.
    16. David E. Sahn & Stephen D. Younger, 2009. "Measuring intra‐household health inequality: explorations using the body mass index," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(S1), pages 13-36, April.
    17. Asena Caner & Ed Wolff, 2002. "Asset Poverty in the United States, 1984-1999: Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics," Microeconomics 0209002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Dorrit Posel & Michael Rogan, 2012. "Gendered trends in poverty in the post-apartheid period, 1997--2006," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 97-113, March.
    19. Sebastian Levine & Benjamin Roberts, 2013. "Robust Estimates of Changes in Poverty and Inequality in Post-Independence Namibia," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(2), pages 167-191, June.
    20. Keshab Raj Bhattarai, 2007. "Analyses of Poverty and Income Redistribution," EcoMod2007 23900007, EcoMod.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1009. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Santiago Burone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csbuabe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.