Abstract
Performing censuses on stigmatized or vulnerable populations is challenging, however, for such populations partial enumeration is often possible using different lists or sources. If the sources overlap then multiple systems estimation (MSE) methods can be applied to obtain an estimate of the total population. These are typically expressed by a log-linear model which permits positive/negative dependencies between lists. This paper considers issues that arise for the application of MSE to modern slavery where there is little to no overlap of individuals across lists. We investigate the robustness of MSE in terms of the importance of each list and the impact of combining lists on the estimation process. We undertake a simulation study and consider real national modern slavery data from the UK and Romania.
Highlights
Modern forms of slavery persist in the 21st century despite the legislative successes of 19th century reformers in having predominantly abolished traditional slavery
We investigate the effect on population size estimation where there is limited overlap between the lists relating to the two specific methods of (i) list omission and (ii) list combination
Questions may be raised in relation to sources that, for example, observe only a relatively small number of individuals, or those which have minimal overlap with other sources, since multiple systems estimation (MSE) relies on overlap between courses in order to estimate the total population size
Summary
Modern forms of slavery persist in the 21st century despite the legislative successes of 19th century reformers in having predominantly abolished traditional slavery. Overlaps between the list held by UK’s NCA and those of other service providers arise both because of the support on offer to probable-cause victims, or because these services may have referred identified potential victims to NCA for appraisal of their eligibility for support, or because police action could rescue further victims It is this overlap of individuals observed by the different sources that permits the use of multiple systems estimation (MSE) for estimating the difficult to obtain total prevalence and associated measure of the problem within society. Demographic information or contextual data, such as type of victimization that victims of modern slavery are subjected to and whether drug dependent, may be important determinants of capture-propensity on some but not all lists, or the interaction between different lists If such information is available, MSE can be extended to directly incorporate such factors (King et al, 2005 demonstrates the case of MSE applied to injecting drug users). Our aim in this paper is to investigate, by simulation and empirically, the impact of lists with minimal overlaps for capture-recapture estimation of victims of modern slavery, and methods to combat effects of such phenomena on population size estimation
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