Stratified Sampling

Stratified Sampling:
Stratified random sampling is a sampling plan in which the populations is divided into several non-overlapping
strata and select a random sample from each stratum in such a way that units within the strata are homogeneous
but between strata they are heterogeneous.

Stratification process does into imply any departure from the principle of randomness. The process possesses the
following salient features:
 The entire population is divided into several distinct sub-population called strata
 Within each stratum, a separate and independent sample is selected
 For each individual stratum, stratum mean, proportion, variance and other statistics are computed.
 These estimates are then properly weighted to form a combined estimate for the entire population.

Principle of Stratification:
The stratification process divides the population into several sub-populations, which we call strata. In forming
such strata, a few principles should be followed. These are:
 The strata should be non-overlapping and exhaustive so that they together comprise the whole
population.
 Strata are to be formed on the basis of some known characteristics of the population.
 When stratification with respect to the characteristics under study becomes difficult for practical reasons,
administrative convenience may be considered as the basis for forming the strata.
 To improve the sampling design, strata should be formed on the basis of natural characteristics.
 Past data, intuition, expert judgment or preliminary findings from pilot surveys may also be used to set-
up the strata.

Steps Involved in Stratified Sampling:

In carrying out stratified sampling, some important points need to be carefully considered. These include, among
others,
 Choice of stratification variable
 Formation of strata
 Number of strata
 Sampling within the strata
 Allocating sample to strata

Estimation and Their Properties:

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Stratified random sampling
Consider a population consisting of units. For stratified sampling, the population is first divided into sub-
populations are non-overlapping and together they comprise the whole of the population so that
. These sub-populations are our strata.

When the strata have been identified, we proceed to draw sample of pre-determined size from each stratum. If
denote the sizes of the samples to be drawn from strata of sizes

respectively, then . If now a random sampling procedure is followed in selecting samples

from each stratum, the whole procedure is described as stratified random sampling.

The notations used for the stratified sampling may be kept exactly analogous to the simple random sampling. We
use the symbol to denote the stratum and the unit within the stratum. Thus, is used to denote the
value of the j-th unit in the i-th stratum. With these notations,

The mean of the elements in the i-th stratum, symbolized is defined as

The stratum variance is

The sample mean for the i-th stratum is defined as

The sample variance is defined as

The weighted population mean is

That is the population mean is equal to the sum of the strata means , each multiplied by its proper weight

, where and . The weighted mean is then equal to the ordinary population mean

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The mean of the overall stratified sample is necessarily a weighted mean and is defined symbolically as

The sample mean is obtained separately and independently within each stratum and is then multiplied by the

stratum weight . These products when summed over all strata, result in the weighted sample mean .

Note that the mean is different from the overall sample mean , which is defined as

Obviously, coincides with only when the sampling fraction is the same in all strata. That is when

This stratification is referred to as stratification with proportional allocation of the . The variance of the

stratified sample, denoted by may be obtained by combining the separate variances of the stratum

means as follows

where

In stratified sampling plan, each stratum can be considered a separate population, from each of which a separate
simple random sample is selected. The simple estimator of the sum in stratum 1 is , that in stratum 2 is

, and so on. Therefore, a reasonable estimator of the total of the stratum sums is the sum of the estimators

This is the stratified estimator of population total, since

The variance of above estimator is

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 Sample proportion
The sample proportion of elements belonging to a given category , is analogous to the sample mean. Thus, if

denotes the sample proportion, then

And its variance is given by

where is the population proportion of elements belonging to a given category in the i-th stratum.

Theorem 1: If in every stratum the sample mean is unbiased, then is an unbiased estimator of the population

mean .
Proof:

So, is an unbiased estimator of the population mean .

Theorem 2: In stratified random sampling, the variance of is

Proof:
To prove this theorem, the following conditions must be satisfied
 is an unbiased estimator of .

 The sample must be drawn independently in different strata.

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Theorem 3: With stratified sampling, the variance of the sample proportion is

Proof:
We know that the variance of estimated mean is

Theorem 4: If sampling is proportional and all the strata have the same variance say ,

then

Proof:

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Theorem 5: If is the estimate of the population total, then

Proof:

Theorem 6: An unbiased estimate of is

where is an unbiased estimator of and is defined as

Proof:

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Difference between Cluster and strata:
A cluster may or may not homogeneous. Within strata they must be homogeneous. Between strata they will be
heterogeneous.

Allocation Sample Size to Strata:

Once to take a sample, first we select sample size , and the next important task is to decide on the number of
observations to be taken from each individual stratum. This is known as the problem of allocation. There are some
important rules or principles for allocating sample sizes to different strata.

The variability of the observations within the strata is an important consideration in the allocation of samples
sizes.

The allocation of samples to different strata usually based on the three factors

 Total number of units in each stratum

 Variability of observations within the stratum

 Cost of taking observations per sampling unit in each stratum.

Different Methods of Allocation:

There are usually four methods of allocation of sample size to different strata in a stratified sampling procedure.
These are
 Arbitrary allocation
 Equal allocation
 Proportional allocation
 Disproportionate allocation

Optimum Allocation:
Optimum allocation is one of the several ways of allocating a fixed sample size over several strata. The purpose of
optimum allocation consists of minimizing
 The sampling variance for a given cost
 The cost of the survey ensuring a specified value for the sampling variance.

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 The allocation of the sample to different strata made in accordance with either of these principles is said to be
based on the principles of optimum allocation.

Optimum Allocation with Fixed :

To maximize the precision of the sample estimate, sometimes the sampling fraction in each stratum is made
proportional to the standard deviation of that stratum. The more homogeneous the stratum, the smaller its standard
deviation, so that we can include small proportion in the sample for the stratum. That is,

where is a constant of proportionality. Summing this

Substituting the value of in equation we get,

Theorem 7: The variance of stratified random sample is the minimum for a fixed total size of the sample

if .

Proof:
Our problem here is to see how a given total sample size, , should be allocated among different strata so that the

stratified estimator of the population mean will have the smallest possible variance. Formally, the problem is

to determine so as to minimize

Subject to the constraint that the total sample size equals , i.e. . This is equivalent to minimizing the

function

for , being an unknown Lagrange’s multiplier. For an extremum of the function, we should have

and

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 Now differentiating the function with respect to and equating the derivative to zero

Differentiating once again

implying that the solution for in provides a minima of the function defined in . Now summing

Dividing equation by

It implies that the allocation made in accordance with it yields the estimate of the mean with the greatest
precision.

Theorem 8: Given the cost function the optimum allocation for fixed cost reduces to the optimum

allocation for fixed sample size, if the cost per unit is the same in all strata. If further, remains
unchanged in all strata, this allocation leads to proportional allocation.
Proof:
The sample size in the ith stratum for fixed cost is given by the expression

If the cost per unit is the same in all strata i.e. , the above expression turns out to be

which is the sample size under optimum allocation when the total sample size is fixed. If ,

which is proportional allocation.

Precision of Stratified Sampling:
To make a comparative study of the precision of stratified sampling, let us begin with the study of variance
obtained under stratified sampling and simple random sampling. Two variants of the stratified sampling viz.
optimum allocation for fixed sample size and proportional allocation are considered in this comparison. Under the

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 stated condition, the optimum allocation in essence is the Neyman’s allocation. Let the carinces of the estimated
means under simple random sampling, proportional allocation and Neyman’s allocation be denoted by

and respectively. In all cases, the finite population correction is assumed to be negligible.

Theorem 9:

If terms in and are ignored then

Proof:
If finite population correction is ignore

By definition

The difference between and is

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 From equation and , we get

Now, combining equation and , we get

Advantage of Stratified Sampling:

1. Stratification tends to decrease the variances of the sample estimates.
2. By stratification, the cost per observation in the survey may be reduced.
3. Stratification makes it possible to use different sampling designs in different strata.
4. Stratification is particularly more effective when there are extreme values in the population.
5. Stratified sampling is most effective in handling heterogeneous population.
6. In stratified sampling, confidence intervals may be constructed individually for the parameter of interest
in each stratum. This is an added advantage over other methods of sampling.

Disadvantage of Stratified Sampling:

The major disadvantage of stratified sampling is that it may take more time to select the sampling than the case
for simple random sampling. More time is involved because complete frames are necessary within each of the
strata and each stratum must sampled.

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