SESSION 4: IMPLICATIONS FOR DATA COLLECTIONCarmen Diana Deere

University of Florida

Gender Asset Gap Project

World Bank Workshop on Gender & Assets, Gender and Development Group, June 14, 2012

Issues in Collecting Individual-level Asset Data

1. Minimum questions required

2. How many assets?

3. Who should be interviewed?

4. If interview two people, how resolve differences?

1. Minimum Questions Required

For Gender Asset Gap, only two questions required beyond the normal household assets inventory:

• Who are the owners of the asset, with space for multiple owners to capture joint owners • GAG project had three spaces, with codes for “all HH members” or non-

HH members who might be joint owners

• Whose names are on the ownership document where appropriate

• For Gender Wealth Gap, besides above, need at least one measure of valuation for each asset

• See Doss et al (2011), Lessons from the Field, available at http://genderassetgap.iimb.ernet.in

2. How Many Assets?

Country % Four Major Assets

Ecuador 89.9

Ghana 81.6

Karnataka, India 92.5

Table 1: Share of Gross Physical Household Wealth represented by the four major assets: Principal residence, agricultural land, other real estate and non-farm businesses

How Many Assets?

Ecuador

(US$)

Ghana

(PPP US$)Karnataka

(PPP US$)

Physical assets

82. 2 b. 104.5 b.  423.6 b.

% 97.6 94.7  95.1

Financial assets

2.0 b.  5.8 b. 19.9 b.

% 2.4 5.3  4.5Total Gross Wealth

84.2 b.  110.3 b. 443.5 b.

% 100.0  100.0 100.0

Table 2. Composition of Gross Household Wealth (preliminary)

Note: Karnataka, India estimate excludes Bangalore

Problems in estimating Gross Household Wealth with the GAG data sets

1. By design, only solicited information on financial assets in the individual questionnaire to ensure privacy, thus not a household measure

2. Ecuador & India ended up with truncated samples due to refusals among upper income groups

3. Many missing values on financial assets• Usual problem of reluctance to disclose savings/cash (distrust)

4. Problems for comparative analysis:• Insurance instruments different, not valued consistently• Have not yet analyzed pensions

Potential information for imputation of financial assets

Country Couples’ Share of Wealth (%)

Ecuador 88.1

(n=1981)  

Ghana 95.8

(n=994)  

India 83.0

(n=3066)  

Table 3. Share of Physical Wealth of Principal Couple in Couple-headed Households

3. Who Should Be Interviewed?

Bardasi, Beegle, Dillon & Serneels (2010) – Tanzania (n=1344)• Experimental design to test labor force participation questions and respondent

selection• Self-reporting provides more accurate information than proxy

Fisher, Reimer & Carr (2010) – Malawi (n=130)• Husbands underestimate wives’ income• Disagree on her income in 94% of couple households

Cloke (2009) – Nicaragua (n=359)• Gendered reporting bias among couples in who is property titleholder and credit holder• Husbands and wives both more likely to report themselves as the owner rather than

their partner

Fletschner and Mesbah (2011) – Paraguay (n=210)• Spouses do not fully share information• Wives less likely to have information on financial institutions

Differences in Survey DesignThe three surveys aimed to interview most knowledgeable person(s) regarding assets owned by HH members• Ghana & India:

• Principal respondent – completed HH asset inventory & individual questionnaire

• Secondary respondent – spouse, if present, or other adult of opposite sex; completed only individual questionnaire and some of asset ownership & valuation questions re-asked during individual interview.

• Ecuador:• HH asset inventory completed by the principal couple together

whenever possible (dual-headed households) or if the case, the sole male/female head • Each then completed the individual questionnaire separately

• If spouse not available for HH inventory, then asset ownership & valuation questions always asked again during individual interview

Benefit of Interviewing 2 people separately: More assets?

Asset Ecuador Ghana Karnataka, India 

Principal dwelling 0.40 na naAgricultural parcels

1.36 0.35 0.15

Other real estate 3.91 0.41 0.35Non-farm businesses

0.52 1.04 0.12

Table 4a. Major Assets added by interviewing a second respondent (% added to Inventory)

Asset Ecuador Ghana Karnataka, IndiaPrincipal dwelling na na naAgricultural parcels

0 2.25 0.97

Other real estate na 1.22 2.82Non-farm businesses

na 0.80 0.68

Table 4b. Major Assets added by asking the Primary Respondent about ownership twice (% added to Inventory)

Benefit of interviewing 2 people/the couple separately: Allows gender analysis• Men and women may have different perceptions of

ownership related to:• Differences in legal knowledge• Different understandings of the bundle of property rights• Gender socialization

• Men and women may have different perceptions of the value of their assets related to:• Whether markets exist and degree of integration to markets• Gender differences in mobility and social networks

Asset Country N (assets) % who disagree

Dwelling        Ecuador 450 35.1  Ghana 510 7.7Agricultural land        Ecuador 94 30.9  Ghana 873 3.3Other real estate        Ecuador 164 20.1  Ghana 413 7.8Non-farm businesses

     

  Ecuador 534 22.3  Ghana 641 1.6

Table 5: Disagreements among Couples over who owns the asset

Asset Country Disagree on Market value (%)

Disagree on Replacement value (%)

Disagree on Rental Value (%)

Dwelling        

  Ecuador 60.4 65.6 57.0

    (n=358) (n=356) (n=358)

  Karnataka 84.0 - -

    (n=1718)    

Ag Land        

  Ecuador 70.0 - -

    (n=80)    

  Karnataka 80.0 - -

    (n=1528)    

Other Real Estate

       

  Ecuador 51.2 60.7 45.6

    (n=123) (n=61) (n=103)

  Karnataka 79.0    

    (n=495)    

Non-farm Business

       

  Ecuador 64.2 - -

    (n=212)    

  Karnataka 80.0 - -

    (n=459)    

Table 6: Disagreement among couples over valuation of the same asset

  KARNATAKA(in INR)

  ECUADOR(in US$)

 

  Husbands Wives Husbands Wives

N 1667 1667 272 272

Mean 263,621 204,289*** 30,771 28,964

(s.d.) (480032) (459869) (31854) (28695)

Median 100,000 100,000 20,000 20,000

Table 7a: Estimates of market value of principal residence by husbands and wives

  KARNATAKA(in INR)

  ECUADOR(in US$)

 

  Husbands Wives Husbands Wives

N 1516 1516 56 56

Mean 386,577 299,950*** 14,575 10,793**

(s.d.) (800700) (581056) (18386) (12979)

Median 170,000 120,000 6,500 5,000

Table 7b: Estimates of market value of agricultural parcels by husbands and wives

  KARNATAKA(in INR)

  ECUADOR(in US$)

 

  Husbands Wives Husbands Wives

N 494 494 63 63

Mean 173,784 176,855 25,244 25,014

(s.d.) (556717) (512959) (33367) (33995)

Median 50,000 50,000 10,000 10,000

Table 7c: Estimates of market value of other real estate by husbands and wives

  KARNATAKA(in INR)

  ECUADOR(in US$)

 

  Husbands Wives Husbands Wives

N 457 457 136 136

Mean 136,927 55,169* 9,459 9,737

(s.d.) (1166042) (325317) (22743) (22982)

Median 8,000 5,000 1,000 1,075

Table 7d: Estimates of market value of non-farm businesses by husbands and wives

4. Main problem of interviewing couple separately: How to reconcile responses?1. Ownership disagreements (Ecuador’s rules)

a) Solved by title (if had document & names agreed with report of one of respondents)

b) Solved by “combination” (if document didn’t agree with either report, or no document, included all mentioned as joint owners)

• Ghana (where few documents) followed latter rule

Potential problems:• Ownership question worded differently in individual questionnaire and HH

Inventory• Bias towards respondent who answered HH Inventory since title

information only asked in this section• Introduces/exacerbates bias towards joint ownership

Alternative:• Estimate ownership based on characteristics of individual and joint owners

in full sample?

Ownership disagreements: Impact of Rules

Table 8a. Ecuador - Disagreements on Home Ownership and How Resolved by Sex

Disagreement Frequency

%

Between Spouses 158 35.1

  Solved by Title 89 19.8

  Siding with Male 42 9.3

    Siding with Female 47 10.4

  Solved by Combination 56 12.4

  With Title 20 4.4

    Without Title 36 8.0

  Over Status of Home 13 2.9

  Male says Owned 6 1.3

  Female says Owned 7 1.6

No Disagreement 292 64.9

Total Homes with Separate Responses

450100.0

Table 8b. Ecuador - Home Ownership in Household Inventory vs. After Resolution of Disagreements by Rules

Type of Ownership

Frequency according to Household Inventory %

Frequency following Final Resolution %

Sole Male 49 31.0 29 18.4

Sole Female 32 20.3 23 14.6

Principle Couple 43 27.2 69 43.7

Principle Couple and Other

21 13.3 25 15.8

Male and Other 5 3.2 5 3.2

Female and Other 3 1.9 2 1.3

Other 5 3.2 5 3.2

Total

158 100.0 158 100.0

How to reconcile different responses?

2. Disagreements over value of asset (Ecuador’s rules)

a) If ownership resolved by title and only 1 owner, took that person’s response; if couple was joint owner, averaged their estimates

b) If ownership resolved by “combination rule”, averaged the estimates of the couple

Potential problems:• Assumes ‘real owner’ knows value of his/her asset best• Did not remove outliers since planned to average, thus

may overestimate ‘true’ value• Would be useful to have administrative data as

benchmark

5. Tentative conclusions:• Interviewing both spouses, second person in general,

minimally increased total assets captured • In household context probably harder to hide assets than

income• Most similar situation to income are financial assets:

• If spouse doesn’t know precisely what you earn, easier to hide savings than other assets

• For that & other reasons, financial assets most difficult to capture fully even when guaranteeing privacy & confidentiality of responses

• Value of interviewing 2 people rests on capturing gender differences in perceptions

Thank you!

For the country studies & comparative report see:

http://genderassetgap.iimb.

ernet.in