Affiliations: [a] Colorado State University, CO, USA | 601 West 113th Street, #12G New York, NY 10025, USA | Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Center for Population
Research, University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677-1848,
USA
Abstract: The US Census Bureau has proposed the use of demographic projections as
population controls for the American Community Survey at a fine level of
geographic and demographic stratification. These projections are known to be
imperfect. Bias and variance of post-stratification estimators with imperfect
population controls at various levels of aggregation are considered. The bias
and variance are computed with respect to the "model" (including data generation
and demographic projection) or with respect to the "design" (including coverage,
sampling, response and demographic projection). Bias and variance depend in a
complex way on the interactions of demographic projection errors with
undercoverage error and nonresponse. Numerical examples illustrate that in the
presence of imperfect demographic projections, control at higher levels of
aggregation may be better in terms of bias than control at a fine level of
post-stratification.
