Sociology 699J: Surveys in Developing Countries

Major Developing Country Surveys

We will review several existing surveys to compare how questions in each topic have been constructed in past research. The first four sources below will be used by the entire class each week. Students are responsible for reviewing the relevant questions in each of these surveys and recommending the most suitable method for HDPI-II.

In addition, there are six other major surveys that provide excellent examples for questionnaire construction. Each week, one student will be responsible for searching through these sources and presenting the alternatives to the class. The student will lead the class evaluation of these alternatives with the goal of recommending a specific set of questions and question wording for inclusion in HDPI-II.

Surveys the entire class will review each week:

1. The Human Development Profile of India (HDPI-I) is the first survey wave in 1994 that forms the basis for the 2004 survey that the class is jointly designing.
2. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is the Indian version of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).
3. The Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS) are a series of surveys sponsored by the World Bank, focusing mostly on economic issues, for example, consumption based measures of poverty.
4. The 2001 Indian Census is the recent Indian census collected from all households in the country. The enumeration used only a two page form for each household plus one additional page for a household list.

Additional surveys to be presented each week:

5. The National Sample Survey (NSS) is a periodic sample survey of the entire country collecting more detailed demographic and economic data. We will be using the 199x...
6. The Rural Economic Development Survey (REDS) is a 199x Indian survey of mainly economic issues concerning household investments and production in agricultural and other rural enterprises.
7. The Survey of Living Conditions, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, is the only Indian attempt at a World Bank Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS).
8. The Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) ,
9. the Malaysian Family Life Survey (IFLS) , and
10. the Guatemalan Survey of Family Health (EGSF) , are three detailed panel studies of family and health data collected by RAND.
11. The International Social Survey Programme is a collaboration among mostly developed country surveys similar to the United States's General Social Survey.
12. The World Value Surveys are a consortium of surveys from a variety of developed and developing countries focusing on politics and values.

Still under construction: please come back