Estimating literacy levels at a detailed regional level: An application using Dutch data

Policy measures to combat low literacy are often targeted at the level of municipalities or regions with an above-average population with low literacy levels. However, current surveys on literacy do not contain enough respondents at this level to allow for reliable estimates, at least when using only direct estimation techniques. To provide more reliable results at a detailed regional level, alternative methods must be used. The aim of this paper is to obtain literacy estimates at the municipality level using model-based small area estimation techniques in a hierarchical Bayesian framework. To... Mehr ...