Comparing Wealth Assessment Methods in Rural South Africa
Author Information
Author(s): Hargreaves James R, Morison Linda A, Gear John S S, Kim Julia C, Makhubele Mzamani B, Porter John D H, Watts Charlotte, Pronyk Paul M
Primary Institution: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Hypothesis
How do participatory wealth ranking and household survey techniques compare in assessing household wealth in rural South Africa?
Conclusion
Both participatory wealth ranking and household surveys can quickly assess household wealth, but they have different strengths and weaknesses.
Supporting Evidence
- PWR showed a high level of internal consistency with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.81.
- Moderate agreement was found between survey-based wealth indices with a Spearman correlation of 0.69.
- Limited agreement was observed between PWR and survey-based methods with kappa statistics of 0.20 and 0.17.
Takeaway
This study looked at two ways to find out how rich or poor families are in South Africa. One way is by asking the community to rank families, and the other is by doing surveys.
Methodology
The study used both participatory wealth ranking and household surveys to create three indicators of household wealth and assessed their internal consistency and agreement.
Potential Biases
Potential biases include community members misreporting wealth and households concealing information from neighbors.
Limitations
The techniques may measure different aspects of wealth, and there may be inaccuracies in data collection.
Participant Demographics
Participants included community members from eight rural villages in Limpopo Province, South Africa, primarily women from poor households.
Statistical Information
P-Value
<0.001
Confidence Interval
95% CI 0.79–0.82
Statistical Significance
p<0.05
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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