Improving Traditional Nonresponse Bias Adjustments: Combining Statistical Properties with Social Theory

Declining response rates have led to increasing reliance on nonresponse adjustment as a way to reduce the risk of nonresponse bias. Unfortunately, the auxiliary variables used in most surveys frequently do not satisfy the sine qua non for effective adjustment: significant associations with both nonresponse and the survey variables. We describe an approach to selecting weight variables that identifies candidates, such as voting and volunteering,...