Transcript The Concept of the Household: From Survey Design to Policy Planning Ernestina Coast (LSE) Sara Randall (UCL) Tiziana Leone (LSE) Funded by ESRC.

The Concept of the Household: From
Survey Design to Policy Planning
Ernestina Coast (LSE)
Sara Randall (UCL)
Tiziana Leone (LSE)
Funded by ESRC
The Issue
Definition of ‘household’ in African censuses &
surveys
– What is a household?
– Much work examines / critiques household (eg: van de
Walle 2006)
– Anthropologists very critical of concept
Do household definitions matter?
Do household definitions matter?
‘The household is central to the development
process. Not only is the household a production
unit but it is also a consumption, social and
demographic unit’
Kenya: Ministry of Planning and National
Development 2003:59
The Issue
Why does the definition matter?
What are consequences of household definition?
– Data commissioners
– Data collectors
– Data analysts
– Data users
• Policy makers
• Planning / implementing targeted interventions
What are the implications for “household” members?
We are not…..
Redefining the definition of the
household
Data designers & collectors have:
clear ideas about why need something called ‘household’
clear aims
clear understanding of household definition
BUT what about analysts / users / consumers far removed
from collection?
MIGHT: look at definition and assume this is the unit of production,
consumption, socialisation central to the development process
MIGHT: not even look at definition because they assume they know
what a household is
shared language
Do household definitions matter?
•
More variables being added in ‘household section’
•
Way of measuring wealth / poverty / access to facilities which influence
health
•
New level of analysis / explanation
•
More use (researchers & policy makers) made of publicly
available data
•
Recognition of importance of society’s basic unit as influence
upon members’ well-being
Methods
1. Document review (1950-present) Sub-Saharan Africa
Census reports, enumerators manuals, questionnaires >1960
Major household surveys since 1980
2. Key informant in-depth interviews (International)
3. Ground truthing fieldwork (Tanzania case studies)
1. Cognitive interviews
2. Ethnographic interviews
4. Modelling differences, to include:
1. Female headed households
2. Household dependency ratios
3. Asset indices
4. Household size
Census Data Collection: issues in household definition
AIM: complete enumeration of population along with individual level
characteristics for planning purposes
Census Data Collection: issues in household definition
AIM: complete enumeration of population along with individual level characteristics for
planning purposes
Themes in definitions
•Eating together
"Respondents who live in
the same housing unit or in
connected premises and
have common cooking
arrangements (eat their
food together)
Ethiopia 1994
Census Data Collection: issues in household definition
AIM: complete enumeration of population along with individual level characteristics for
planning purposes
Themes in definitions
•Eating together
•Common housekeeping
'private
household'
..defined as a
group of persons
living together
and sharing living
expenses.
Tanzania
"Respondents who live in the
same housing unit or in
connected premises and have
common cooking arrangements
(eat their food together)
Ethiopia
Census Data Collection: issues in household definition
AIM: complete enumeration of population along with individual level characteristics for
planning purposes
Themes in definitions
•Eating together
•Common housekeeping
'private household'
..defined as a group
of persons living
together and sharing
living expenses.
Tanzania
"Respondents who live in the
same housing unit or in
connected premises and have
common cooking arrangements
(eat their food together)
Ethiopia 1994
•Living together
A household consists of a person, or a
group of persons, who occupy a
common dwelling (or part of it) for at
least four days a week and who
provide themselves jointly with food
and other essentials for living. In
other words, they live together as a
unit. South Africa
Census Data Collection: issues in household definition
AIM: complete enumeration of population along with individual level characteristics for
planning purposes
Themes in definitions
•Eating together
•Common housekeeping
•Living together
'private household'
..defined as a group
of persons living
together and sharing
living expenses.
Tanzania
"Respondents who live in the
same housing unit or in
connected premises and have
common cooking arrangements
(eat their food together)
Ethiopia 1994
•Answerable to head
-a group of persons who normally
live and eat together Kenya 1969
- a group of persons who normally
live and eat together, whether or
not they are related by blood or
marriage Kenya 1979/89
- adds answerable to the same
household head Kenya 1999
A household consists of a person, or a
group of persons, who occupy a common
dwelling (or part of it) for at least four
days a week and who provide themselves
jointly with food and other essentials for
living. In other words, they live together
as a unit. S.Africa 1996
Census Data Collection: issues in household definition
AIM: complete enumeration of population along with individual level characteristics for
planning purposes
Household definition practical: facilitating collection of exhaustive enumeration of
individuals minimising possibility of double counting
De facto / de jure: All countries de facto. Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana also de jure
Evolution of units over time
Botswana – 1964 household (dwelling place), 1971 household in compound “lolwapa”, 1981+
households
Gambia – 1963 ‘families’ in ‘yards’, 1973 compounds, 1983+ households
Ghana – 1963 house/compound (household for PES), 1970+ households
Kenya – 1962+ households – living together & sharing meals
Malawi – 1966/1977 dwelling unit, 1987+ household
Nigeria – 1952 premises, 1973+ household
Tanzania – 1967+ household
Zambia – 1963+ household (but 1963 rural – ended up being hut) 1969+ household
Census Data Collection: issues in household definition
AIM: complete enumeration of population along with individual level characteristics for
planning purposes
DIFFICULTIES EVOKED
• Servants
– are they part of household or separate?
•Boarders / lodgers
•Absent household head
•Polygamy
•Complicated patterns of male female residence (Ghana)
•Children in boarding school
Census Data Collection: issues in household definition
Summary:
• household definition is practical solution to
census aims of total enumeration
• recognition (usually) that is a reduced social unit
• recognition that compromises are made
• set of rules for enumerators to follow
• continuity over time – comparability
Creation of what van de Walle (2006) calls ‘a statistical household’
Tanzanian example: language and the household
“So when we , at NBS (in mid 1970s) when we sent and we discussed
this in meetings and we said well, we now have to look for a word in
Kiswahili – there were suggestions - more than one – as usual.
We said, wel,l we have the National Kiswahili Council and we have the
Dept of Kiswahili at UDSM. We shall send them the definition of the
household as we know it from the UN. Now we shall ask them to
suggest what is it the Kiswahili equivalent that would fit that UN
definition, that long thing, and we shall suggest that meetings have
suggested that it should probably be this or that but maybe there may
be some others, and they also came up with the kaya. Kaya is the
arrangement that best suits that definition of the household from the
UN.”
(Senior retired Tanzanian Statistician/Demographer)
Sample surveys: issues in household definition
(eg: WFS, DHS, WHS)
Household definition
practical:
to enable the identification of individuals for
individual questionnaires
“The household is a device used to
get at the individual. The
household is the sampling unit
while the individual is the
observational unit.”
‘main purpose of household
questionnaire was to identify
women who were eligible for the
individual interview’
World Health Survey 2002
Zambia DHS 1992, 1996
Sample surveys: issues in household definition
(eg: WFS, DHS)
• much more standardised (still some local variations)
• Little variation between core questionnaires and those
used by countries
• Little development over time
• Comparability across time and space
Ghana pilot (WFS) provided some detailed insight into the problems of designing
verbatim local language questionnaires:
Difficulty of translating the concept ‘household’ in any of the three languages tested
(Ewe, Asante-Ti and Dagbani)
Cleland et al 1987, p174
Do household definitions matter?
•
More variables being added in ‘household section’
•
Way of measuring wealth / poverty / access to facilities which influence
health
•
New level of analysis / explanation
•
More use (researchers & policy makers) made of publicly
available data
•
Recognition of importance of society’s basic unit as influence
upon members’ well-being
Do household definitions matter?
Issues of misrepresentation
–
Labour / resources / consumption / poverty…
•
Sub-groups

Homeless

Street children

Mobile production systems (fishers, pastoralists, miners,
construction)

Migrants

Single person households
Do household definitions matter?
Increasing use of ‘indicators’
Many indicators calculated at the
household level
– MDGs
– Poverty reduction
– Asset indicators
– Access to piped water / latrine
– Access to key resources (production or communication)
– Consumption and expenditure
– Including food
Do household definitions matter?
Question:
“What is a household?”
Answer:
“6 people”
Do household definitions matter?
I
Based on your experience in Tanzania how would you define a
household?
R
A household? [laughs all round] 6 persons. [more laughter]
I
And then what do you base that on?
R
Well it’s the government that says when you buy a CHF card
it’s for 6 persons…Community Health Fund, the payment
scheme. How to define a household? People who eat from
the same kitchen. That’s what I would say.
From European embassy
So what is the issue?
Data designers & collectors have:
clear ideas about why need something called ‘household’
clear aims
clear understanding of household definition
BUT what about analysts / users far removed from collection?
MIGHT: look at definition and assume this is the unit of production,
consumption, socialisation central to the development process
MIGHT: not even look at definition because they assume they know
what a household is
A clue: households in European
surveys
Household definition usually ‘up to respondent’
GGS: "R is supposed to mention the members of his/her
household without any further explanation. If R doubts
about whether to include a certain person among the
household members or not, consider the following
definition….”.
FFS: "The definition of a "household" is largely up to the
respondent. In case there is any discussion about this, a
household is a person or a group of persons who usually
live(s) and eat(s) together”.
Conceptualising understanding of
households
• Economic household (IS & PS)
‘the household is an
economic unit where the
members are linked by
an economic
relationship such as
producing together,
sharing the money
earned or sharing the
home’
The Social Dimensions
of Adjustment Priority
Survey, Grootaert &
Marchant (1991,17)
Conceptualising understanding of
households
• Economic household
• Residential household
Conceptualising understanding of
households
• Economic household
• Residential household
• Consumption household
“the household was
defined as “consisting of
one or more persons
related or unrelated who
make common provision
for food and who regularly
take their food from the
same pot and/or share the
same grain store
(nkhokwe) or pool their
incomes for the purpose of
purchasing food."
Malawi 1987, 1998
A simplified example….
STATISTICAL HOUSEHOLDS
1 X MARRIED COUPLE
1 X FEMALE-HEADED HOUSEHOLD
SOCIO-ECONOMIC HOUSEHOLD
An example from 2007 fieldwork in Tanzania
Steven
Victoria
=
An example from 2007 fieldwork in Tanzania
Steven
Victoria
=
Anna
Mary
Joy
Ernest
Judy (13)
An example from 2007 fieldwork in Tanzania
Maria (13)
Anna
Steven
Victoria
=
Mary
Joy
Ernest
Judy (13)
1 Male headed household
6 adults and 9 children
Dependency ratio =1.5
An example from 2007 fieldwork in Longido
Maria (13)
Maasai
Anna
Steven
Victoria
=
Mary
Joy
Ernest
Judy (13)
3 households:
1 male & 2 female headed
An example from 2007 fieldwork in Longido
Maria (13)
Maasai
Anna
Steven
Sleeping last night
(census)
Victoria
=
Mary
Joy
Ernest
Judy (13)
3 households:
1 male
& 2 female
1 Male headed
household
headed
3 adults
+ 6 and
children
(DR= 2)
6 adults
9 children
1 woman+2 children (DR=2)
Dependency
ratio(DR=2)
=1.5
1 woman
+ 2 children
Emerging themes
• Single person households
• Urban affluent
• Household headship?
• Gated communities
• Migrants and mobility
• Low-income rental neighbourhoods
• Occupations
• Mining
• Agribusiness
• Construction
Where is the cooking pot?