Sampling and Surveying Hard-to-Reach Populations for Demographic Research

Adapting chain referral methods to sample new migrants

“…Other studies have used more ad hoc methods, including careful quota sampling (Drinkwater and Garapich 2011), snowballing (Beauchemin and González-Ferrer 2011), centre sampling (Baio, Blangiardo, and Blangiardo 2011), and workplace sampling (Agadjanian and Zotova 2012). Many of these, however, focus on particular, economically active groups of migrants.…”

“…Many migrant populations can identify others as members of their own group, and the very act of migration operates through social network channels (Kalter 2011;Massey et al 1999). Migrants may have undocumented or tenuous legal status in the country of destination, and may therefore be more likely to avoid interviews from unknown others (Agadjanian and Zotova 2012;Montealegre et al 2013). RDS thus presents a unique possibility to reach all types of recently arrived immigrant populations and gather sufficient social network information to obtain weighted estimates of population parameters.…”

Economic Incorporation, Civil Inclusion, and Social Ties: Plans to Return Home among Central Asian Migrant Women in Moscow, Russia

“…Although citizens of the three Central Asian nations may enter the Russian Federation without a visa, getting a permission to work, securing residential registration, and, especially, obtaining permanent legal residency and Russian citizenship are complex processes fraught with numerous and often obscure bureaucratic caveats giving rise to massive corruption and abuse. Most migrants, men and women alike, are therefore to some degree undocumented in Russia, that is, lack authentic migration registration or residential registration and/or work permit (Menj ıvar, Agadjanian, and Zotova, 2012). Migrants' legal insecurity is compounded by widespread public hostility toward Central Asian migrants, not least because they are both racially and culturally very distinct from Russia's ethnic majority: Central Asians typically have darker complexion and are overwhelmingly Muslim, compared to light-skinned, mainly Orthodox Christian ethnic Russians and other Slavs (Regamey, 2010).…”

Legality, Racialization, and Immigrants’ Experience of Ethnoracial Harassment in Russia

“…In eateries and retail outlets, the survey used a time-venue sampling approach whereby respondents were recruited at their places of work at a particular time of day; in bazaars, a random-walk algorithm was employed (see Agadjanian and Zotova 2012 for details on the application of time-venue sampling and random-walk algorithm for surveying migrants in urban Russia). The survey interviews were carried out in the language of respondent’s choice (Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, or Russian) by female interviewers of matching ethnicity/origin; similar background, combined with rigorous interviewer training, helped to build interviewer-respondent rapport and to reduce the “retaliation fear” that often affects responses in surveys of vulnerable populations (see Zotova and Agadjanian 2014).…”