Sample design and weighting strategies in SHARE Wave 5

This chapter provides a description of the sampling design and weighting strategies adopted in the fifth wave of SHARE. We begin by defining the target population that SHARE aims to represent. Next, we describe the sampling design focusing on the basic principles guiding the construction of the SHARE sample, the role played by sampling frames for coverage of the target population, and other important aspects of sampling - such as stratification, clustering and variation in selection probabilities - that affect the efficiency of sample-based inference. The chapter concludes with a description of the weighting strategies adopted by SHARE to handle problems of unit nonresponse in the baseline and refreshment samples and problems of attrition in the panel sample.