A Framework for Investigating Microdata Quality, with Application to South African Labour Market Household Surveys

Abstract This chapter identifies a framework for investigating microdata quality that is particularly useful to researchers working with public-use micro datasets where limited information about the data quality protocols of the survey organisation are present. It then utilises this framework to investigate South African labour market household surveys from the mid 1990s to 2007. In order to develop the framework, we rely on the total survey error (TSE) framework to articulate the forms of statistical imprecision that exist in any public-use dataset. The magnitudes of statistical imprecision are largely dependent on the efficacy of the survey organisation’s data quality control protocols, which are, in turn, affected by human resource and budget constraints.