Missing Dimensions Survey Modules

• Employment - English, French, Spanish, Chinese
• Agency - English, French, Spanish, Chinese
• Physical safety - English, French, Spanish, Chinese
• Social connectedness - English, French, Spanish, Chinese
• Psychological and subjective wellbeing - English, French, Spanish, Chinese
• Response cards - English, Spanish 
• Technical notes (employment)
• Technical notes (empowerment)
• Technical notes (Psychological and subjective wellbeing) 

These Working Papers in English describe how the indicators were developed, and criteria for their inclusion in individual and household surveys. 

These abridged Working Papers in Spanish describe how the indicators were developed, and criteria for their inclusion in individual and household surveys. 

• Working Paper 0: Las dimensiones faltantes en la medición de la pobreza. Sabina Alkire, May 2007.
• Working Paper 1: La importancia de la seguridad en la medición de la pobreza. Rachael Diprose, May 2007.
• Working Paper 2: Empleo. Una propuesta de indicadores comparables internacionalmente. Maria Ana Lugo, May 2007.
• Working Paper 3: Pobreza, vergüenza y humillación: una propuesta de medición. Diego Zavaleta, May 2007.
• Working Paper 4: Agencia y empoderamiento en la medición de la pobreza. Solava Ibrahim and Sabina Alkire, May 2007.
• Working Paper 5: ¿Para qué medir el bienestar subjetivo y psicológico? Emma Samman, May 2007.

These Working Papers in Mandarin describe how the indicators were developed, and criteria for their inclusion in individual and household surveys. 

Working Papers – Mandarin:

• Working Paper 0: 贫困数据的缺失维度：引言 牛津大学：萨比娜·阿尔基尔 Sabina Alkire, May 2007.
• Working Paper 2: 关于就业的国际通用度量指标 牛津大学：玛丽亚·阿南·卢戈 María Ana Lugo, May 2007.

This special issue is based on the proceedings of OPHI’s launch in May 2007. It presents revised versions of papers focusing on aspects of missing poverty data, including proposed indicators and questions to measure each missing dimension. It also includes the comments of discussants Grace Bediako, François Bourguignon and Stephan Klasen.

• The Missing Dimensions of Poverty Data Oxford Development Studies vol. 35, no. 4, December 2007 Guest Editor Emma Samman 

Working with PEP to test modules in Nigeria, Sri Lanka

In 2009 OPHI worked with the Poverty and Economic Policy Research Network (PEP Network) to pilot the missing dimensions survey modules. These have been carried out in communities in Chad, Nigeria and Sri Lanka. The questionnaires, which were administered in French, Igbo, Sinhala and Tamil, are available to download here.

• Full MD Questionnaire Implemented in Chad by Institut National de la Statistique, des Etudes Economiques et Démographiques (INSEED) – French, 2009
• Full MD Questionnaire Implemented in Sri Lanka – Tamil, 2009
• Full MD Questionnaire Implemented in Sri Lanka – Sinhala, 2009
• Full MD Questionnaire Implemented in Nigeria – Igbo, 2009
• Full MD Questionnaire Implemented in Nigeria – English Translation, 2009

Working with CBMS to test modules in Philippines 

In 2009, OPHI worked with the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) in the Philippines. This involved piloting the missing dimensions modules among 500 households in one rural and one urban community in and around Manila.

• Full MD Questionnaire Implemented in Philippines – Tagalog, 2009

Multidimensional Poverty and Vulnerability in Chad

The Government of Chad’s National Institute of Statistics, Economic and Demographic Studies (INSEED), OPHI and UNICEF-Chad worked together on a study to explore the multi-layered connections between poverty and vulnerability in Chad. OPHI provided technical advice for the project on the design of the data collection exercise including sample size, question selection and training, as well as extensive data analysis to identify ‘missing links’ for policy. The study was led by UNICEF-Chad’s Social Policy, Planning and Evaluation Division, designing the scope of the project, coordinating the partners, and overseeing all parts of the data collection, data cleaning and data analysis work.

The study drew upon a large-scale nationally representative household survey of over 4,500 households in 2012. The project generated a new nationally representative dataset with OPHI’s five ‘Missing dimensions of poverty data’ as well as key variables on health behaviours in Chad. The household survey data analysis together with the relevant secondary research aimed to allow the three collaborators to generate policy-relevant evidence to support advocacy and follow-up measures.

The survey design was highly innovative in that information was gathered from the household head and from all adult women in the household. This allowed for a novel study of the intra-household situation of women in each household in order to understand intra-household poverty and wellbeing, and also channels of transmission of health behaviours.

Project goals

Data from the survey were analysed to address three human issues affecting people’s lives in Chad and beyond. Analyses were intended to: 

• Lay the groundwork to guide development and phased implementation of an evidence-based national social protection programme aimed at using approaches grounded in human rights, women’s empowerment, and community mobilisation to improve girls’ education and to reduce maternal mortality and violence against women in Chad;
• Show why and how five ‘missing dimensions of poverty data’ deriving from the ‘capability approach’ could be vital in expanding the scope and effectiveness of UNICEF’s equity-focused programming in general and in a fragile country setting like Chad, in particular; and
• Explore the ‘hidden links’ between key social determinants of multidimensional vulnerability and the propensity to adopt some of the proven behaviours, such as breastfeeding and hand washing, in order to contribute to the fine-tuning of related interventions to improve effectiveness and thereby the outcomes.

Project timeline

The project started by developing a new survey instrument that integrated OPHI’s five missing dimensions of poverty data survey modules with more traditional UNICEF indicators and adapting them to the local context. This pilot survey was then tested and revised. Nearly 300 enumerators and supervisors from INSEED were trained in the capital N’Djamena in April and were supported by OPHI Research Officer Diego Zavaleta, and OPHI Consultant, Hicham Ait Mansour.  During May and June of 2012, teams of enumerators fielded the survey throughout the country.

Exploratory study

In this period, Chad was one of the world’s poorest countries and faces numerous challenges that hindered its progress on human development and toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was ranked 183 out of 187 countries according to UNDP’s 2011 Human Development Index (UNDP 2011). The data currently available made clear that the country needed to confront a wide array of deprivations, spanning well beyond income poverty. This exploratory study aimed to stimulate innovative and high-impact policy responses to persistent deprivation in the country.

Missing Dimensions of Poverty Survey in Chile

The ‘Missing Dimensions of Poverty’ dataset collected in Chile was the first nationally representative survey to include the five OPHI modules. The data contained indicators of quality of work, empowerment, physical safety, the ability to go without shame and psychological wellbeing – in addition to standard poverty data already collected on income, health, education, housing quality and employment. OPHI collaborated with Ministerio de Planificación y Cooperación (MIDEPLAN), República de Chile and Centro de Microdatos, Facultad de Economía y Negocios and Universidad de Chile to collect and compile these data.

The new survey was administered in 2008/9 to a subsample of 2,000 households from the 2006 CASEN household survey (Encuesta de Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional). In addition to the new data, all the CASEN 2006 data were available for the surveyed households, and numerous questions from the 2006 CASEN were repeated: the entire income module, most of the employment module, and several questions on health, education and housing. Therefore, the dataset had interesting panel, as well as cross-sectional, elements.

Analyses of the data included:

• Comparing unidimensional and multidimensional poverty measures
• Using cluster analysis to define a taxonomy of households according to their multidimensional wellbeing
• Correlates of income poverty (and Missing Dimensions)
• Income shifts and the Missing Dimensions
• Social benefit receipts and the Missing Dimensions
• New measures of gender inequality in Chile according to the Missing Dimensions
• Social polarization and inequality measures using Missing Dimensions
• Multidimensional aspects of child poverty in Chile using the Missing Dimensions
• Links between self employment and subjective wellbeing
• Female labour force participation and Missing Dimensions
• Measuring the quality of employment in Chile from the capability perspective
• Entrepreneurship, self-employment and welfare
• Quality of employment and ‘decent work’
• Quality of employment and job satisfaction
• Comparing psychological/subjective wellbeing and objective deprivations
• A descriptive analysis and validity testing of the module on shame and humiliation and its link to group inequality
• A descriptive analysis and validity testing of the module on physical safety
• A descriptive analysis and validity testing of the empowerment module

Dataset available to download

The full dataset was available to researchers working with OPHI who had signed a Data Share Agreement. These correspond to all the accepted proposals from the ‘Call for Proposals for Analysis of Chilean data on Missing Dimensions’ which were made public on our website.

Resources

• Full Original MD Questionnaire Implemented in Chile – Spanish
• Full MD Questionnaire in Chile – English Translation
• Full Report from MICRODATOS (Zip file)