Small Area Estimates of the Population Distribution by Ethnic Group in England: A Proposal Using Structure Preserving Estimators

This paper addresses the problem of producing small area estimates of Ethnicity by Local Authority in England. A Structure Preserving approach is proposed, making use of the Generalized Structure Preserving Estimator. In order to identify the best way to use the available aggregate information, three fixed effects models with increasing levels of complexity were tested. Finite Population Mean Square Errors were estimated using a bootstrap approach. However, more complex models did not perform substantially better than simpler ones. A mixed-effects approach does not seem suitable for this particular application because of the very small sample sizes observed in many areas. Further research on a more flexible fixed-effects estimator is proposed.