Exploring the Relationship Between Social Factors and Government Survey Nonresponse

In a previous study, we explored the relationship between economic and political factors and survey refusal, and noted the importance to collect or otherwise obtain measures that will help us understand more about the social aspect of the social-political-economic construct of survey nonresponse. Recently, we had the opportunity to collect such measures as part of the Census Tracking Survey. The Tracking Survey was launched in September 2019 and concluded in June 2020. It was a national survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that tracked public awareness of the 2020 Census. Participants were asked about a variety of questions, including questions about social engagement and empathy, both possible measures of one’s social environment and hence one’s attitude towards participating in a government survey. To our knowledge, empathy has not been considered as factor of survey nonresponse. We propose that social factors such as these play an important role in the decision to participate in a survey. Using the Tracking Survey data, we built a logistic regression model, with plan to participate/participated in the 2020 Census as the dependent variable, and known and suspected factors of survey participation as independent variables. We found that social engagement and empathy were both important factors of participating in the Census.