Building a Sampling Frame for Migrant Populations via an Onomastic Approach: Lesson learned from the Austrian Immigrant Survey 2016

Abstract

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.