Sara Randall

Cultural constructions of the concept of household in sample surveys

We analyse the use of the concept of household in sample surveys, with evidence drawn from a review of survey definitions, a series of in-depth interviews with data producers and users, and a systematic study of recent literature. We consider the place of the concept within the discipline of demography, and demonstrate how its definition and use interact with cultural values and core concepts integral to the discipline. Focusing on Tanzania as a case study, we examine the diversity of factors that influence the construction of household-level data from cross-sectional household surveys. Throughout the survey process, contrasting interpretations of the meaning of household and different motivations for using specific definitions of the term interact. This generates data and outputs with potential for undercounting, bias, and misrepresentations, with adverse effects on the quality of data used for monitoring development indicators. Some ways of improving data collection on households are proposed.

Profile: The Ouagadougou Health and Demographic Surveillance System

The Ouagadougou Health and Demographic Surveillance System (Ouaga HDSS), located in five neighbourhoods at the northern periphery of the capital of Burkina Faso, was established in 2008. Data on vital events (births, deaths, unions, migration events) are collected during household visits that have taken place every 10 months. The areas were selected to contrast informal neighbourhoods (∼40 000 residents) with formal areas (40 000 residents), with the aims of understanding the problems of the urban poor, and testing innovative programmes that promote the well-being of this population. People living in informal areas tend to be marginalized in several ways: they are younger, poorer, less educated, farther from public services and more often migrants. Half of the residents live in the Sanitary District of Kossodo and the other half in the District of Sig-Nonghin. The Ouaga HDSS has been used to study health inequalities, conduct a surveillance of typhoid fever, measure water quality in informal areas, study the link between fertility and school investments, test a non-governmental organization (NGO)-led programme of poverty alleviation and test a community-led targeting of the poor eligible for benefits in the urban context. Key informants help maintain a good rapport with the community. The Ouaga HDSS data are available to researchers under certain conditions.

Poverty in African Households: the Limits of Survey and Census Representations

Abstract African poverty statistics depend on household-level measurements from survey data, making the definition of household of critical importance. Detailed case studies from Tanzania and Burkina Faso explore (1) understandings of household membership and ambiguities, and (2) how well survey definitions capture households as economic units, and the implications for household size and responses to and mitigation of poverty. We develop an analytic framework of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ households. ‘Open’ households cope with poverty using flexibility, movement and extra-household networks, but are poorly represented by survey data. Closed households are likely to be better described by survey data.

Pastoralists, Agropastoralists and Migrants: Interactions Between Fertility and Mobility in Northern Burkina Faso

Seasonal rural to urban migration of young men is becoming an increasingly important part of the rural economy of the West African Sahel, yet little is known about how the short-term contact of men with urban centres might affect reproductive decisions and outcomes in sending areas. In northern Burkina Faso, substantial variation in short-term migration rates of young Fulani men to cities provides an opportunity to explore interactions between migration and fertility in this area. The groups most involved in seasonal labour migration experience substantially lower fertility than non-migrating groups. Fertility differentials arise largely from higher rates of secondary sterility among migrating groups, probably caused by an increased incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. Such mechanisms as changes in attitudes and knowledge regarding birth control, and the undermining of traditional practices of marriage, breastfeeding, and sexual abstinence are far less important.

Différences géographiques et sociales dans la mortalité infantile et juvénile au Mali.

Hill Allan y Randall Sara. — Diferencias geograficas y sociales de la mortalidad infantil y juvenil en Mali. En este articulo se exponen las tablas de mortalidad de la infancia y la juventud de cinco comunidades rurales de Mali. Se habia previsto que las poblaciones pobres, aisladas o nomades tendrian una mortalidad mas elevada que las poblaciones mas ricas, menos aisladas y sedentarias. Se muestra que estas previsiones no corresponden a la realidad. Incluso estas diferencias de mortalidad permanecen inexplicadas despues de haber hecho un control de factores taies como la etnia, el sistema de produccion y el medio ambiente. Un estudio mas detallado sobre una poblacion nomada Kel Tamasheq permite sugerir que los diferentes sistemas de cuidados y atenciones de las madres sobre sus hijos pueden tener una importancia considerable sobre la variation de las tasas de mortalidad.

Where have all the nomads gone? Fifty years of statistical and demographic invisibilities of African mobile pastoralists

There is considerable interest in the numbers and population dynamics of mobile African pastoralists alongside a recognition that they are probably undercounted or excluded from many data sources because of the difficulties in enumerating mobile individuals. In the Sustainable Development Goals where it is anticipated that everyone will be counted and their characteristics measured, it is important to develop appropriate strategies for including mobile pastoralists. I document the extent to which mobile African pastoralists have been invisible in the demographic record in the last half century and analyse the diverse pathways by which these invisibilities have been brought about in census and survey data collection exercises in different countries.A careful review of available documentation for censuses and Demographic and Health Surveys for the band of countries from Mauritania across to Kenya reveals heterogeneous patterns of pastoral nomad statistical invisibility with different forms and intensities according to national and socio-political context. Whereas there was substantial statistical invisibility of mobile pastoralists in the 1980s and 1990s in both data sources, deliberate exclusion has been much reduced in recent years, although there remain issues of clarity and definition.Although the availability of demographic and statistical data on mobile pastoralists is improving, it is impossible to document with any accuracy any transformations in the numbers of these populations over the last half century. Considerable work on developing appropriate categories and definitions needs to be undertaken if statistics on the characteristics of mobile pastoralists are to be appropriately represented in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Whose reality? Local perceptions of fertility versus demographic analysis.

Single-round demographic surveys of three Malian populations showed substantial fertility differentials, with much lower fertility in the two nomadic pastoral Kel Tamasheq populations than among the sedentary cultivating Bambara. Demographic analysis explained these fertility differentials by different marriage patterns, dominated by the structural effects of Kel Tamasheq monogamy which maintains a large group of currently unmarried women. This contrasts with the Kel Tamasheqs own pre-occupations with their low fertility which they ascribe to pathologically induced subfecundity and sterility. Parity progression ratios and birth-interval distributions are used to examine the degree to which the Tamasheq perceptions of their own fertility behaviour can be demonstrated by using the demographic data. The importance of the different perspectives and outcomes is discussed, with the need for taking into account local concerns both in analysis and ultimate policy interventions.

Blood is hotter than water: Popular use of hot and cold in Kel Tamasheq illness management

Ethnographic data on Malian Kel Tamasheq use of hot-cold classification in illness management within the household show that, although hot and cold vocabulary is known by most people, the concepts of opposition and balance are only one of several approaches to treating illness and are rarely used in practice. This differs from the importance ascribed to hot and cold by Tamasheq traditional healer specialists as cited in the literature. The logic of the classification is based on symptoms rather than foods, and is associated with the presence or absence of blood or water. Many people are able to reproduce this symptomatic logic without being able to articulate its details. Because of their more frequent contact with blood through menstruation and childbirth, women are more susceptible to cold symptoms which are most frequently and clearly articulated in relation to gynaecological illnesses. Knowledge and understanding of the classification varies by social class, with those groups more recently assimilated into the Tamasheq population less likely to subscribe to this interpretation of illness. The influence of data collection methodology to the apparent importance of hot and cold as an explanatory system is also discussed.

Counting the Population or Describing Society? A Comparison of English and Welsh and French Censuses

Data collected at household level in censuses are used for a wide range of purposes including practical planning and academic analysis of changing social conditions. Comparability is a core demographic value, and to understand the limits of the comparability of census data across time and space, it is important to recognise if, how and why, concepts and definitions change between censuses. This paper examines definitions of the household in censuses in England and Wales (E&W) and France from 1960 to 2012 in order to investigate how census definitions have changed and to examine the drivers of such changes. Two research methods were used: (1) longitudinal analyses of census documentation since the 1960s and (2) in-depth interviews with key informants oriented around respondents’ roles in the collection and/or use of household data from censuses and surveys. We identify two contrasting national approaches to the data collection exercise that is called a census, which reflect political and institutional differences. These differences call into question the comparability of some aspects of census data across national boundaries, despite increased harmonisation of approaches to data collection. By comparing the evolution of the definitions of the “household” in censuses, we develop insight into the diversity of the priorities of census commissioners and designers, and consider the broader implications of this for producing comparable data.

UN Census "Households" and Local Interpretations in Africa Since Independence

Since the 1950s, the UN Statistical Division has encouraged nations to standardize the definitions used in data collection. A key concept in censuses and surveys is the household: This is the unit for which information is collected and analyzed, and is thus an important dimension of data that are the basis for many policies. We aim to understand the tensions between conformity with UN guidelines and national priorities. We analyze the documentation around the UN household definition over this period. Using detailed census and survey documentary data for several African countries, especially Burkina Faso, Senegal, Uganda, and Tanzania, we examine the disparities between national census definitions of “household” and the UN definition. Perspectives from interviews with key informants within national statistical offices demonstrate the variability in the importance accorded to the UN harmonization aims and the problems that arise when these standardized approaches interact with local norms and living arrangements.