The phrase "a proxy for something" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a substitute or stand-in for something else, often in contexts like research, data analysis, or social sciences.
Example: "In this study, income level serves as a proxy for overall economic well-being."
Alternatives: "a substitute for something" or "a stand-in for something".
Or is the conversation about school closure really a proxy for something more subtle, complex, and intractable?
Cultural problems are likely to be much greater when 130 states are involved.Another possibility is that "happiness" is really a proxy for something else, such as health.
The second is that the muddle is really a proxy for something more interesting: an ideological fight within the European Union that has not yet been resolved.
And even if immigration was serving as a proxy for something else, it was something that people like her were desperate for politicians to address.
These contrasting results suggest that homeownership is perhaps a proxy for something different than ties.
First, in the absence of any convictions or confessions from students, it is entirely possible that this methodology has created a proxy for something other than contract cheating.
The city has hired a succession of experts, a new research team every few years, to analyze the police department's use of force, but officials seem to have viewed the act of commissioning a report as a proxy for doing something about the problem.
Since before the Korean War, the peninsula has been seen as somewhat of a proxy for competing interests, something that the regime in Pyongyang has always known and exploited, during the Cold War and on into these changed political times.
The sense that this wasn't just a quarrel over wages on the platinum belt, but a proxy war for something much bigger – a union of business and state versus a movement of the poor – was inescapable.
A leading Jewish organization in Hungary asked Orbán to halt the campaign, saying it was a proxy for anti-Semitism ― something that the government denies.
