This section outlines how to check survey data with macro data and then looks at weighting strategies to adjust for discrepancies.

Comparing the micro survey distribution with macro data
One of the virtues of some macro data sources is that they allow you to check the quality of micro survey data. For example, you can use UK census data to check the quality of UK survey data by comparing the marginal distributions from the census and the survey for variables that both have in common, such as age or gender. Another example is that you can check reported electoral turnout in the European Social Survey with official turnout data. This is often done by running a simple frequency distribution and comparing the results with some published source of macro data.