MPC Member Publications

This database contains a listing of population studies publications written by MPC Members. Anyone can add a publication by an MPC student, faculty, or staff member to this database; new citations will be reviewed and approved by MPC administrators.

Full Citation

Title: How to measure socioeconomic status using census data in developing countries?

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2011

Abstract: This research aims to develop a reliable and robust measure for socioeconomic status at the household level using census data available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series- International (IPUMS-I), the world's largest census database. First, we use principal component analysis to compute a wealth index based on housing characteristics and asset ownership, with separate measures for rural and urban areas. The validation strategies include comparing our proposed index with the widely used Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) wealth indices and then verifying the predictive power of our index on selected outcomes. Moreover, we attempt to identify general conditions necessary to produce a robust asset index based on census data. Preliminary results based on the wealth indices from four separate samples reveal estimates comparable to the DHS indices. Conditioned on the reliability of the results, this measure will be included in the IPUMS-I database for further research.

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Gondwe, Dorothy; Sharma, Uttam; McCarthy, Aine Seitz; Lovaton Davila, Rodrigo; Kirdruang, Phatta

Conference Name: Population Association of America

Publisher Location: Washington, D.C.

Countries: Colombia, Senegal

IPUMS NHGIS NAPP IHIS ATUS Terrapop