What does Imputation mean?
The assignment of values by the Census Bureau when information is missing or inconsistent. Imputation relies on the tendency of households of the same size within a small geographic area to be similar in most characteristics. For example, the value of “rented” is likely to be imputed for a housing unit not reporting on owner/renter status in a neighborhood with multi-unit structures for which other respondents reported “rented” on the census questionnaire. There are two major types of imputation: 1) allocation, in which missing values for individual items are entered on the basis of other reported information for the person or household (or from other persons or households with similar characteristics) and 2) substitution, in which all of the information for a person or household is created from other persons or households with similar characteristics.
