sample selection bias
sample selection biasNon-random selection is both a source of bias in empirical research and a fundamental aspect of many social processes. When observations in social research are selected so that they are not independent of the outcome variables in a study, sample selection bias (sometimes labelled ‘selection effects’) leads to biased inferences about social processes. For example, information on wages is only available for people in employment, but working women are a non-random sample of all adult women: they have a larger investment in educational qualifications and higher potential earnings than do non-working women, so the decision to do paid work is not independent of earning potential. Sociologists have only recently begun to recognize the contaminating influence—as illustrated by R. A. Berk, ‘An Introduction to Sample Selection Bias in Sociological Data’, American Sociological Review (1983) and Stanley Lieberson, Making it...
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