Annual Survey of Refugees, 2018

United States of America, 2019

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Reference ID

ORR_USA_2018_ASR_vEXT

Producer(s)

Office of Refugee Resettlement, Urban Institute (Contractor)

Collections

Other organizations Americas

Metadata

Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON

Created on

Jun 27, 2022

Last modified

Jun 27, 2022

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15209

Identification

Survey ID number

ORR_USA_2018_ASR_vEXT

Title

Annual Survey of Refugees, 2018

Country

Name	Country code
United States of America	USA

Study type

Socio-Economic [hh/ses]

Abstract

Since the 1980s, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has conducted the Annual Survey of Refugees (ASR), which collects information on refugees during their first five years after arrival in the U.S. The ASR is the only scientifically-collected source of national data on refugees’ progress toward self-sufficiency and integration. ORR uses the ASR results alongside other information sources to fulfill its Congressionally-mandated reporting following the Refugee Act of 1980. Historically, the microdata from these surveys have generally been unavailable to researchers.

In the spring of 2019, ORR completed its 52nd Annual Survey of Refugees (ASR). The data from the ASR offer a window into respondents’ first five years in the United States and show the progress that refugee families made towards learning English, participating in the workforce, and establishing permanent residence

Kind of Data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Unit of Analysis

Households and individuals

Version

Version Description

v2.1: Edited, anonymous dataset for licensed distribution.

Scope

Notes

Demographics; household composition; English training; livelihoods; education; residency status; medical care sources; social assistance; housing.

Topics

Topic
Education
Livelihood & Social cohesion
Health Care
Domestic Needs/Household Support
Income Generation
Land and Property

Coverage

Geographic Coverage

National coverage

Universe

Refugees aged 16 years old or over at the time of interview who arrived in the U.S. during FY 2013-2017 inclusive.

While this covers five distinct fiscal years of refugee entrants, there is special
policy/analytic interest in collapsing years into three domains as follows:

• Cohort 1 – Refugees entering FY 2013 and FY 2014,
• Cohort 2 – Refugees entering FY 2015 and FY 2016, and
• Cohort 3 – Refugees entering FY 2017

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators

Name
Office of Refugee Resettlement
Urban Institute (Contractor)

Funding Agency/Sponsor

Name
Office of Refugee Resettlement / U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Sampling

Sampling Procedure

The 2018 ASR employed a stratified probability sample design of refugees. The first stage of selection was the household (PA) and the second stage was the selection of persons within households. Principal features of the sample design are highlighted below.

The 2018 ASR design replicated the 2017 and 2016 ASR design, which used a full cross-sectional national sample of refugees entering within the past five years. This section documents the research design, data collection and data processing protocols. It also presents outcomes (e.g., sample sizes) and paradata results such as response rates.

The population of interest – the study population – for the 2018 ASR is defined as refugees entering the U.S. between FY 2013 and FY 2017, inclusive, who are at ages 16 and over at the time of the 2018 ASR interview3. Because the interviews were conducted in early 2019, the population includes a small number of refugee respondents younger than 16 at the time of arrival to the U.S.

The 2018 ASR targeted 1,500 completed interviews from refugee households entering the U.S. between FY 2013-2017. The sample was designed to allow for separate estimates and analyses from each of the three designated cohorts. Moreover, the design needed to accommodate both household- and person-level analyses.
The sample was drawn as fresh cross sections by cohort; there was no longitudinal component. The survey objectives required that – in addition to primary stratification by cohort – the sample of households (i.e., PAs) be stratified at least by year of entry and geographic region of origin.

The 2018 ASR sampling frame was ORR’s Refugee Arrivals Data System (RADS) dataset.

Within each of the three cohort strata, the following factors were used for stratification: year of arrival (for cohorts 1 and 2 only), geographic region, native language, age group, gender, and family size at arrival (1, 2, 3+ persons). Missing contact information status was also used as a stratification variable for cohort 3 due to an unusual degree of missing contact information among FY 2017 arrivals. Proportionate stratified samples were drawn independently within cohort.

Deviations from the Sample Design

The 2018 ASR employed a sample management plan integrating the sample design and field protocols to include locating subjects, contacting them and conducting telephone interviews. A sample of 3,050 PAs was released at the start of data collection. A reserve sample of about 6,100 was held in case some portion was needed to meet the interview target of 1,500.

Response Rate

An overall response rate of 21 percent was achieved. The response rate was driven by the ability to locate and speak to (1,514+510)/ 7,315 = 28 percent of the sample, meaning that two thirds of the sample could neither be located nor (if located) successfully contacted.
The overall response rates decreased with time since arrival to the U.S., varying from 17 percent for FY 2013-14 refugees to 23 percent for FY 2015-16 refugees and a high of 25 percent for FY 2017 refugees.

Weighting

Household- and person-level analytic weights were developed for the 2018 ASR to allow for valid statistical estimates of the target refugee population. Both sets of weights are comprised of two components – a base weight reflecting the selection probability and an adjustment that corrects for differential nonresponse and aligns the population to known totals from the sampling frame (RADS universe file).

Specifically, analytic weights incorporate:

• A base (sampling) weight which reflects the refugee household selection probability. The weight itself is simply the reciprocal of the probability of selection; because the sample allocations of each cohort were managed separately, the selection probabilities varied by the size of the population and the amount of sample released into the field;

• A post-stratification adjustment which corrects the sample for differential nonresponse4 across cohort and demographic subgroups as well as aligning the sample to known population distributions taken from the RADS.

Data collection

Dates of Data Collection

Start	End
2019-01-23	2019-04-17

Data Collectors

Name
Urban Institute (contracted by ORR)

Data Collection Notes

For the 2018 ASR, revisions to the 2017 survey instruments and materials were translated into 16 different languages, including English. The survey retained an interpreter to conduct interviews in a 17th language, Chaldean. As in the 2017 ASR, the 2018 questionnaire’s household roster was structured around the respondent. Subsequent demographic questions were asked of respondents first, and repeated for other household members only if their responses were reported to be different (qn1gaa, qn1haa, qn1iaa).

Data Access

Citation requirements

Urban Institute. 2018 Annual Survey of Refugees. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-02-19. https://doi.org/10.3886/E104642V4

Metadata production

DDI Document ID

UNHCR_ORR_USA_2018_ASR_DDI_v1.0

Producers

Name
UNHCR

Date of Metadata Production

2022-05

Metadata version

DDI Document version

1.0

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