The 2000 Census Interim Assessment (2001) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Appendix B: Mail Returns
Appendix B: Mail Returns
Pages 179-194
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 179... ...
In 2000, "mail" returns included returns filed over the Internet and telephone and "Be Counted" returns that had valid addresses and did not duplicate another return. The denominator for mail return rates in both 2000 and 1990 was restricted to occupied housing units in the mailback universe.
|
From page 180... ...
We knew that the overall reduction in net undercount in 2000 could not likely be due to mail returns, given that the total mail return rate was somewhat lower in 2000 than in 1990.2 However, we thought it possible that changes in mail return rates for particular types of areas, such as those with many renters or minority residents, might help explain the reductions in net undercount rates that the Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (A.C.E.) Program measured for usually hard-to-count groups.
|
From page 181... ...
By housing tenure, both owner-occupied households and renter households showed the same patterns: mail returns included proportionally fewer cases of within-household omissions or cases with one or more erroneous or unresolved enumerations than enumerator returns. Consistently, renter households had higher proportions of these kinds of households than owner households (comparable data are not available for 19901.
|
From page 182... ...
182 THE 2000 CENSUS: INTERIM ASSESSMENT on Cal ._ on ASP: I: U
|
From page 183... ...
to the total of erroneous enumerations plus correct enumerations. The omission rate ranges from 3.8 percent in the highest mail return rate decile to 14.8 percent in the lowest decile.
|
From page 184... ...
There are two exceptions: American Indian and Alaska Native owners living off reservations and Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander owners, for whom the rates of erroneous and unresolved enumerations are similar between mail and enumerator-obtained returns; and American Indian and Alaska Native renters living on reservations, for whom the rates of erroneous and unresolved enumerations are higher for mail returns than for enumerator-obtained returns. For the update/leave cases, the patterns are similar to mailout/mailback cases: the rate of erroneous and unresolved enumerations for people on mail returns in update/Leave areas is 3.1 percent, compared with 9.2 percept for people on enumerator-obtained returns, with rates for owners lower than those
|
From page 185... ...
The exceptions are American Indians and Alaska Natives living on reservations, for whom people on mail returns have higher (not lower) rates of erroneous enumerations than do people on enumeratorobtained returns, and for whom owners have higher rates than renters.
|
From page 186... ...
This analysis should be considered tentative because the range of variables available for explanatory purposes is limited by geographic differences: the return rate summary files are given in 2000 census collection geography, which has somewhat different boundaries and very different numbering mechanisms from the geography used to tabulate data files for public release (e.g., the 2000 6These preliminary return rates from the A.C.E. should not be confused with the official census return rates, yet to be released.
|
From page 187... ...
In general, then, 2000 mail return rates closely resembled 1990 mail return rates by tract, with some tendency for high-return tracts Tom 1990 to register a lower return rate in 2000. This conclusion is consistent with previous Census Bureau research on the structure of mail response rates, which are a slightly different construct than the mail return rates we examine here (Word, 1997)
|
From page 188... ...
demarcate those tracts whose mail return rates experienced changes of 20 percentage points or more between 1990 and 2000. areas and areas with high concentrations of residents with limited English proficiency usually have lower return rates (Word, 1997; Salvo and Lobo, 19971.
|
From page 189... ...
SOURCE: Analysis by panel staff of U.S. Census Bureau, Return Rate Swn~ File (U.S.)
|
From page 190... ...
Some discrepancies between the two models arise signs diner on the coefficient associated with percentage of recent movers, and the geographic effects are consistent with markedly higher rates in the central regions of the country in 1990 than in 2000. Except for local geographic differences, 1990 and 2000 mail return rates may effectively be estimated by the same regression equation, in which the 1990 hard-to-count score, percentage net undercount, percentage people in multi-unit structures, and percentage people who were not high school graduates have large negative effects and 1990 percentage population over age 65 has a strong positive effect.
|
From page 191... ...
APPENDIXB {\U:-Vo oOO:: A~O: O r ~ AM ~0O8io~ ° ''-`'°° ^F—if; O O got ~ %03W ~ 8 o ~ .
|
From page 193... ...
Again, our analysis here is limited by the available data; we look forward to the Census Bureau's evaluations of factors influencing mail return rates. CONCLUSION We did not find that changes in mail return rates explain the reductions in net undercount rates shown in the A.C.E.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.