Qualitative data in demography

Sara Randall and Todd Koppenhaver
Additional contact information
Sara Randall: University College London (UCL)
Todd Koppenhaver: Johns Hopkins University

Demographic Research, 2004, vol. 11, issue 3, 57-94

Abstract: Qualitative methods and insights from other disciplines are increasingly integrated into demography’s traditionally quantitative toolkit. Whereas this is not problematic for multi-disciplinary research projects difficulties may arise when quantitatively trained demographers diversify to use less familiar data collection tools. We review the scale of this recent trend and the choice of qualitative methods typically employed by demographic researchers. Using insights from a comparative qualitative study undertaken in Zimbabwe and Senegal, we discuss some problems inherent in qualitative data collection and analysis and propose ways in which such data should and should not be used. Focussing in particular on semi-structured in-depth interviews, we discuss issues of representativity, investigate respondents’ silence on specific topics, and the role of interviewer characteristics in influencing the interview subject matter.

Keywords: data collection; Zimbabwe; research methods; qualitative data; in-depth interviews; interviewers; Senegal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol11/3/11-3.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:demres:v:11:y:2004:i:3

DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2004.11.3

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Demographic Research from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Editorial Office ().