Despite the rise in global refugee migration, probability panels surveying refugees remain rare. The German IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees, conducted annually since 2016, provides valuable panel data for research. In 2023, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a sample of Ukrainian refugees was added, along with a refreshment sample of refugees from other countries. This paper examines household-, individual-, and interview-related determinants of panel retention across these two groups of refugees. As a proof of concept, we apply the Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to assess whether it offers analytical insight for comparative panel retention analysis beyond standard group-indicator regression by separating compositional from …

Migrants are a diverse and potentially disadvantaged minority group which makes them hard-to-reach and hard-to-survey. As migrant research often relies on general population survey studies, it is important to understand the potential consequences of these surveys shifting from traditional face-to-face to mixed-mode interviews for the composition of migrant samples. By comparing the Austrian segment of the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Social Survey Austria (SSA) to the official Austrian microcensus (MZ) from the years 2016 to 2023, we find that shares of respondents with a migration backgrounds are significantly lower in both social surveys, irrespective of data collection mode. …

We conducted a randomized experiment that evaluated how the inclusion of a Quick Response (QR) code in mailed survey recruitment materials for a sequential mixed-mode (push to web followed by self-administered mail back) survey fielded with a statewide probability address-based sample impacted survey participation. Each address was randomly assigned to receive mailed recruitment materials with either a unique uniform resource locator (URL) only or a unique URL with a QR code. The inclusion of a QR code resulted in a small (+1.31 percentage point) increase in overall participation and a small (+1.01 percentage point) increase in the share of recipients …

Recruiting older persons with diverse health statuses as participants in research projects is a challenge for health researchers, particularly because persons with health impairments and in socially disadvantaged living conditions are difficult to reach. This article presents a step model for gaining access to older people who are difficult to contact. The step model is based on the literature and a qualitative analysis of documentation, field notes and memos that stem from the recruitment processes of two studies from the German research consortium ‘Autonomy despite multimorbidity in old age’, both of which also included older persons who would qualify as …

Immigrants are traditionally seen as hard to survey. Their number is often too small to be analysed via data gained in general population surveys, and registers to identify them are often missing or incomplete. Therefore, researchers are forced to use alternatives for sampling. In the case of the Austrian Immigrant Survey 2016, an onomastic (name-based) approach was used, establishing a sampling frame in a two-step procedure. This article describes the concept and the implementation of the sampling and evaluates the sample that could be realised.