From Design to Practice: How can large-scale household surveys better represent the complexities of the social units under investigation?

  • Antoinette Kriel University of South Africa
  • Sara Randall University College London (UCL)
  • Ernestina Coast The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
  • B. de Clercq University of South Africa
Keywords: quantitative household survey concepts, organisational and structural complexity, representativeness

Abstract

The way in which ‘the household’ is defined and operationalised in surveys and census data collection has long been criticised as unable to adequately capture the complexities of the social units within which people live. In a South African national survey on household wealth (HWS) a definition of the household was used to rep-resent the ways in which South African households arrange themselves financially. Here we report on a qualitative study in which 36 households originally included in the HWS were re-interviewed to collect detailed data on household financial links and dependencies. Households with more complex structures, which represent the majority of household types in South Africa, were very poorly represented, and possible reasons for this are explored. We analyse and discuss the HWS research process in the light of the findings of this study, and propose ways to improve large-scale survey design and data collection, drawing on perspectives from multiple disciplines. 

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Author Biographies

Antoinette Kriel, University of South Africa
Personal Finance Research Unit,
B. de Clercq, University of South Africa
Department of Taxation
Published
2014-09-23
Section
Articles