{"id":251791,"date":"2023-07-12T20:39:26","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T15:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=251791"},"modified":"2023-08-31T12:59:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T07:29:52","slug":"it-is-unfair-to-blame-survey-methodology-when-results-disagree-with-a-view-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/it-is-unfair-to-blame-survey-methodology-when-results-disagree-with-a-view-point\/","title":{"rendered":"It is unfair to blame survey methodology when results disagree with a view point"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cIt is unfair to blame survey methodology when results disagree with a view point\u201d <\/strong>published in The Indian Express <\/strong>on\u00a012th<\/sup> July 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS 3 \u2013 Growth & Development, Planning<\/strong><\/p>\n

Relevance: <\/strong>concerns associated with various surveys conducted in India<\/strong><\/p>\n

News<\/strong>: In a recent article titled “The sample is wrong,” Shamika Ravi, a member of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council<\/strong>, expressed concerns about national surveys in India. However, it is not a correct picture.<\/p>\n

What concerns were highlighted by Shamika Ravi?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Under-Representation:<\/strong> She argued that indicators used by the National Sample Survey (NSS<\/strong>) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have failed to capture the true progress of India, and they express concerns about the deterioration of the official statistical system.<\/p>\n

The overestimation of the rural population in national surveys conducted by NSS and NFHS (National Family Health Survey) is cited as an example of this shortcoming.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, the national data gathering system has gone to great lengths to make the samples statistically representative.<\/p>\n

For instance,<\/strong> separate samples are drawn for rural and urban areas, and any excluded geographical regions are clearly specified for reasons beyond the organization’s control.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the population estimates derived from the NSS have consistently been lower than the numbers reported by the Census or its projected figures.<\/p>\n

Although this disparity has been investigated in the past, no specific faults in the survey methodology have been identified.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Share of the Rural Population:<\/strong> Shamika Ravi further argued that the share of rural population estimated by NSS\/NFHS post 2011 Census is much higher than the projected share of rural population from the Census.<\/p>\n

However, population projection is based on assumptions on<\/strong> fertility, mortality and migration using appropriate statistical models.<\/p>\n

The urban population is projected using the urban-rural growth differential (URGD<\/strong>) from the period 2001-2011, which implicitly takes into account increases both in statutory and Census towns.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the primary objective of the NSS and other survey agencies is to generate statistically valid estimates separately for rural and urban areas<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

They typically report percentage values rather than absolute numbers across different categories. Their methodologies are not designed to estimate the population size in the survey year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conservative in Urban Projections:<\/strong> Shamika Ravi argues that the Census has been conservative in its urban projections as India achieved the urbanisation level projected for 2016 in 2011.<\/p>\n

However, using the method of URGD, even the United Nations (UN) has projected a much higher share of urban population in India.<\/p>\n

It is also worth noting that the last Census data is over 13 years old<\/strong>, and despite several representations, the Registrar General of India (RGI) has not made efforts to reassess its urban projections.<\/p>\n

Response Deficits:<\/strong> Shamika Ravi observes a relationship between response deficits in surveys and wealth levels. It is true that household surveys are becoming difficult due to non-cooperation of households and non-access to richer households in urban areas.<\/p>\n

However,<\/strong> the NSS utilizes a substitution method for non-cooperating households, ensuring a near 100 percent response rate.<\/strong> Hence, the observation that the response rate of men falls significantly with wealth needs investigation.<\/p>\n

What is the way ahead?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sampling theory and practice is a scientific discipline.<\/strong> Even some of the surveys conducted by MOSPI have also been found to be of indifferent quality due to engagement of outside agencies.<\/p>\n

Hence, it is unjust to solely blame the survey methodology when survey estimates diverge from a particular narrative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article\u00a0\u201cIt is unfair to blame survey methodology when results disagree with a view point\u201d published in The Indian Express on\u00a012th July 2023. Syllabus: GS 3 \u2013 Growth & Development, Planning Relevance: concerns associated with various surveys conducted in India News: In a recent article titled “The sample is… Continue reading It is unfair to blame survey methodology when results disagree with a view point<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,8184],"class_list":["post-251791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-economy","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1702741340},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}