Are cross-national general population surveys useful tools to investigate issues such as the social and political attitudes and behavior of immigrant minorities? A precondition to do so is that they include these groups in their target population, but also that they are adequately represented in the final data obtained.

Our aim in this contribution is to provide an overview of the way the main cross-national population survey projects of different geographical scope (regional/world wide) address the measurement of often related concepts such us migrant status, citizenship and ethnicity. We first look at how these surveys define their target population and the items included in their questionnaires to identify these subgroups. Then we move on to analyse the survey data of achieved cases of in order to analyse whether and to what extent these groups (migrants/ethnic minorities) are underrepresented in the final datasets. The literature has identified different reasons for this underrepresentation of migrant/non-national/ethnic minorities in surveys such as the residential mobility of these groups, language barriers among others, while an analysis of different cross national survey projects might provide variation on other factors that could be relevant, such as the mode of administration.

The results of this analysis are aimed to be relevant both to those interested in survey methodology and to those pursuing research topics regarding the social and political attitudes/behaviour of immigrants/ethnic minorities.