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Can Convenience Samples be Trusted? Lessons From the Survey of Jews in Europe, 2012

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Abstract

Jews living in the Diaspora form a very small proportion of the total population in all countries without an exception. This situation (‘the rarity problem’) presents a major obstacle to survey taking among Jews: Jews are nearly impossible to capture in numbers conducive to statistical analysis in regular national sample surveys. Various probability-based sampling methods have been applied in the context of Jewish surveys. The key development in the field of Jewish social surveys in Europe, however, is the shift from probability sampling to methods that are reliant on non-probability sampling, either partially or exclusively. Can the insights produced by such samples be trusted? To what extent can they be understood, by academics and policy makers, as a true representation of the realities lived through by contemporary European Jewish populations? These questions are empirically investigated using the FRA 2012 survey - the first cross-European survey of Jewish perceptions and experiences of antisemitism conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and polling agency IPSOS Mori in 2012.

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Fig. 1

Note: Affiliation categories for the UK: (1) “Progressive” includes respondents affiliated with the Reform, Liberal and Masorti movements; (2) “Mainstream Orthodox” includes respondents affiliated with the United Synagogue, Federation of Synagogues, Spanish and Portuguese Sephardi community and their regional equivalents; (3) “Strictly Orthodox” includes respondents affiliated with the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. Affiliation categories for France: “Communally involved” includes respondents who reported some degree of involvement in Jewish communal activities (from rare involvement to very frequent involvement). Affiliation categories for Germany: “Communally affiliated” relates to those affiliated with the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat). The level of affiliation to other communal organizations is not quantifiable at the level of precision required for benchmarking. Sources for benchmark data in the UK: age, sex, geography and education - 2011 census (census Tables DC2107EW, DC2107SC, DC5204EW), data for age, sex and geography are for Great Britain where practically all UK Jews live, data for education are for England and Wales where 98% of all British Jews live. Data links: England and Wales census data can be obtained from Nomis, Official Labour Market Statistics website at https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/detailed_characteristics and Scotland’s census data at http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ods-web/standard-outputs.html. For affiliation with a synagogue–synagogue membership survey, see Casale Mashiah and Boyd 2017. Sources for benchmark data in France: Cohen (2009). Sources for benchmark data in Germany: data on sex, geography and communal affiliation are from Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland (2013); data on education are from Ben Rafael et al. (2011); data on age are based on both Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland (2013) and Ben Rafael et al. (2011), the latter source is used to correct the proportion of Jews in age category 16-39 years because the Zentralrat’s records are suspected of undercounting the youngest Jews

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Note: (1) The EWCS questions about experiences of physical assault and threats in the 12 months preceding the date of the survey read as follows: (a) “During the last 12 months, has anyone, including people you know well, DELIBERATELY hit you with their fists or with a weapon of any sort or kicked you or used force or violence in any other way?”. (b) “During the last 12 months, has anyone THREATENED you in any way that actually frightened you? Please include threats that have been made by any means, for example in person, on-line or over the telephone”. (c) “During the last 12 months, have you been sexually interfered with, assaulted or attacked, either by someone you knew or by a stranger?” (d) “During the last 12 months, has any member of your household (aged 16 or over) deliberately hit you with their fists or with a weapon or any sort, or kicked you, or used force or violence on you in any other way?” In the EWCS datasets these questions are reflected by variables allass_p and threat_p. For the purpose of comparison to the FRA 2012 both variables were combined into a single binary variable marking as a victim anyone who had experienced physical assault and/or threats. This variable included the following EWCS offence codes: 11 (serious wounding), 12 (other wounding), 13 (common assault), 21 (attempted assault), 32 (serious wounding with sexual motive), 33 (other wounding with sexual motive), 91 (threat to kill/assault made against, but not necessarily to respondent), 92 (sexual threat made against, but not necessarily to respondent), 93 (other threat or intimidation made against, but not necessarily to respondent), 94 (threat against others, made to the respondents). The comparable FRA 2012 question reads as follows: “In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, if at all, has somebody physically attacked you – that is, hit or pushed you – or threatened you in a way that frightened you? This could have happened anywhere, such as at home, on the street, on public transport, at your workplace or anywhere else.” (2) 95% confidence interval appears in brackets. (3) The 2010/13 average of the prevalence of assault and threats is calculated on the basis of data from three years of the EWCS (2010/11, 2011/12 and 212/13), weighted to reflect the true population size. Confidence intervals are based on the unweighted figures. (4) FRA 2012 weighted figures are after weighting for age, sex and communal affiliation

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Note: (1) The EWCS questions about experiences of vandalism read as follows: (a) “During the last 12 months, have you had your vehicle tampered with or damaged by vandals or people out to steal?” (b) “During the last 12 months, did anyone GET INTO your house/flat without permission and CAUSE DAMAGE?” (c) “During the last 12 months, did anyone deliberately deface or do damage to your house/flat or to anything outside it that belonged to someone in your household?” (d) “During the last 12 months, has anything else of yours been DELIBERATELY DAMAGED or tampered with by vandals or people out to steal?” In the EWCS datasets these questions are reflected by variable vandal_p. This variable includes the following EWCS offence codes: 80 (arson), 81-82 (criminal damage to a motor vehicle), 83-84 (criminal damage to the home), 85-86 (other criminal damage). The comparable FRA 2012 question reads as follows: “In the PAST 12 MONTHS, how often, if at all, has somebody deliberately damaged or vandalised your home or your car, for example with graffiti?” (2) 95% confidence interval appears in brackets. (3) The 2010/13 average of the prevalence of vandalism is calculated on the basis of data from three years of the EWCS (2010/11, 2011/12 and 212/13), weighted to reflect the true population size. Confidence intervals are based on the unweighted figures

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Notes

  1. Jewish Chronicle, Britain’s oldest Jewish newspaper, commissioned the surveys from Survation. The results of the surveys can be found in the publicly available archives of Survation polls, at http://survation.com/archive/.

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  1. Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), London, UK

    L. Daniel Staetsky

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Correspondence to L. Daniel Staetsky.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3, 4 and 5.

Table 3 British FRA 2012 sample compared to benchmarks
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Table 4 French FRA 2012 sample compared to benchmarks
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Table 5 German FRA 2012 sample compared to benchmarks
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Daniel Staetsky, L. Can Convenience Samples be Trusted? Lessons From the Survey of Jews in Europe, 2012. Cont Jewry 39, 115–153 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-019-09280-8

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