Application of Sampling Variance Smoothing Methods for Small Area Proportion Estimation

Sampling variance smoothing is an important topic in small area estimation. In this article, we propose sampling variance smoothing methods for small area proportion estimation. In particular, we consider the generalized variance function and design effect methods for sampling variance smoothing. We evaluate and compare the smoothed sampling variances and small area estimates based on the smoothed variance estimates through analysis of survey data from Statistics Canada. The results from real data analysis and simulation study indicate that the proposed sampling variance smoothing methods perform very well for small area estimation.