Representativeness of the Low-Income Population in the Health and Retirement Study

37 Pages Posted: 6 Aug 2013

See all articles by Erik Meijer

Erik Meijer

University of Southern California; RAND Corporation

Lynn A. Karoly

RAND Corporation - Santa Monica CA Offices

Date Written: July 2013

Abstract

We study to what extent the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is representative of all income groups, but with a particular emphasis on low-income groups. To focus on the HRS sample composition and abstract from potential measurement issues associated with measures of income and program participation, we exploit the SSA administrative data matched to the HRS sample and compare their distribution against the distribution of the same variables for the same population in the SSA databases. We find that overall, for cohorts and years that can be most reliably compared, the distributions are very similar and conclude that the HRS is representative for the population it covers. However, for some subgroups in the low-income population (e.g., recipients of Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid beneficiaries), there are some differences and thus we caution against estimating population totals for such small sub-populations. The HRS samples for which restricted matched administrative data are available are often not representative of a broad population of interest, because not all HRS respondents were asked permission to match in any given year. Therefore, the restricted HRS data-files are generally not suitable for estimating population distributions, although they are still very useful for modeling purposes.

Keywords: survey measurement, Social Security Administration, Health and Retirement Study

Suggested Citation

Meijer, Erik and Karoly, Lynn A., Representativeness of the Low-Income Population in the Health and Retirement Study (July 2013). Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Paper No. 2013-273, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2306580 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2306580

Erik Meijer (Contact Author)

University of Southern California ( email )

635 Downey Way
Los Angeles, CA 90089-3332
United States

RAND Corporation ( email )

1776 Main Street
P.O. Box 2138
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
United States

Lynn A. Karoly

RAND Corporation - Santa Monica CA Offices ( email )

P.O. Box 2138
1776 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
United States

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