Comparing alternative measures of household income: Evidence from the Khayelitsha/Mitchell's plain survey

Jolene Skordis () and Matthew Welch

Development Southern Africa, 2004, vol. 21, issue 3, 461-481

Abstract: Household income is widely used for economic and sociological analysis, yet little emphasis has been placed on the optimal way to gather household income data. The Khayelitsha/Mitchell's Plain Survey provides a unique opportunity to explore alternative ways of measuring household income. This study compares the estimates obtained from a household module with those obtained from detailed income data collected in the adult module of the survey. Estimates derived from individual income data tend to be higher and have greater variation than those obtained from the household module. This difference between income estimates has a material impact on the secondary analysis of income data. The Gini coefficient, a simple measure of income-inequality, is used in this study to illustrate how household income measured at the household level underestimates household income inequality.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0376835042000265441 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:deveza:v:21:y:2004:i:3:p:461-481

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CDSA20

DOI: 10.1080/0376835042000265441

Access Statistics for this article

Development Southern Africa is currently edited by Marie Kirsten

More articles in Development Southern Africa from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().