Community Wealth-Ranking and Household Surveys: An Integrative Approach

Abstract:     
Traditionally, participatory methods of analysis like wealth ranking exercises were favoured mainly by sociologists and development practitioners. But the use of participatory methods in conjunction with other more formal methods has increased recently. This is particularly true in poverty studies that focus on understanding of rural livelihoods in developing countries. In addition to poverty analysis, wealth ranking has also been used in very different research and assessment exercises usually in combination with other research methods. A lively debate on the methodological validity of participatory methods including wealth ranking has developed The main focus of this paper is on the use of information from wealth ranking exercises in conjunction with data collected from household surveys. The paper outlines a simple conceptual framework for a more systematic analysis of wealth ranks with information from household surveys, and applies it to a rural data set of 37 villages from four East African countries.

Keywords: qualitative-quantitative methods, wealth ranking, East Africa

JEL Classification: I32

working papers series