🧠 What is Multistage Sampling?

🧠 What is Multistage Sampling?

Answer: Multistage Sampling is an extension of cluster sampling where sampling is carried out in two or more stages.

Example:

1. First Stage: Select districts (Primary Sampling Units).

2. Second Stage: Select villages within districts.

3. Third Stage: Select households within villages.

At each stage, sampling can be SRS, systematic, or stratified depending on design.

Advantages:

• Suitable for large-scale and geographically dispersed populations.

• Saves time and cost.

• Allows flexibility at each stage.

Disadvantages:

• Variance computation is complex.

• Sampling error increases with more stages.

Cross Question: 👉 Can we say that stratified sampling is a special case of multistage sampling?

→ No. In stratified sampling, all strata are represented and sampling is done once.In multistage sampling, selection is done stage-wise and not all sub-units are selected.

Example: In NSSO Household Consumer Expenditure Survey —

• Stage 1: Villages selected by PPS.

• Stage 2: Households selected by SRS within villages.