Deriving indicators in survey years

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The steps used to populate the tables in survey years consists of reweighting the SFS, scaling to NBSA totals, and then obtaining distribution estimates from the resulting data set.

The SFS weights currently used for the DHEA differ slightly from the version used to publish estimates obtained directly from the survey. The SFS weights are adjusted to reduce the impact of certain influential records and recalibrated to take into account population control totals more closely related to the analytical categories of the DHEA. These two reweighting steps, which together produce DHEA-specific weights, are part of the usual SFS weight calculation process that have been adjusted to align more closely with the DHEA analytical categories. This reweighting process is also used as a model for non-survey years, as described in the next section.

Since the SFS excludes nursing homes and residences for seniors from its sample, an adjustment is made to the DHEA to cover the elderly institutionalized population. The adjustment made is based on the assumption that those living in nursing homes or seniors residences are similar to individuals not in institutions who are aged 65 or older, live alone and are not in the labour force. The weights of these individuals are increased based on Census counts of the institutionalized elderly population and adjustments are made to certain asset and debt variables, such as those related to the principal residence.

Using these DHEA-specific weights, the SFS micro-data for every survey year are scaled. First, variables for asset and liability categories at the most granular level are scaled to the adjusted national accounts totals according to the concordance table. Subsequently, the values for the aggregate categories of assets and liabilities and for net worth are recalculated based on these scaled values for the granular-level categories of which they are composed. Next, the total values of net worth and of each of the asset and liability sub-categories for each distribution category are estimated from SFS using the scaled values and the DHEA-specific weights.

Finally, an adjustment is applied to the DHEA wealth distributions by province and region to remove a portion of the national NBSA wealth control totals related to households in the territories, as the SFS excludes those households from its sample.

A more complete description of these steps is found in the technical methodology and quality report