The KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study (KIDS) third wave: methods, first findings and an agenda for future research

Abstract

The panel study known as the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study (KIDS) has been extended by a new wave of data collection conducted in 2004. This third wave of the study interviewed 865 households containing core adult members from 760 of the households contacted in 1993. It also conducted interviews in next-generation households that have split off from the parental households and in the current households of children who have been fostered out. The study finds that the proportion of people aged 20–44 dying between the second and third waves was nearly three times the proportion dying between the first two waves. The pattern of income distribution is one of increasing poverty and inequality since 1993, although the partial reversal of these trends in the post-1998 period is hopeful, as are signs of relative prosperity among those who established independent next-generation households. In addition, access to services has improved.

Notes

^∗Associate Professor, School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal; Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside; Professor, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Professor, Centre for Population Studies, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. In 2004, the KIDS team included Michelle Adato, Tania Boler, Einar Braathen, Thabani Buthelezi, Suriya Dawaad, Lawrence Haddad, Nina Hunter, Masinghita Khandlela, Mimi Ndokweni, Catherine van Ruit, Myra Taylor, Myriam Velia, Ingrid Woolard and Futhoshi Yamauchi. Particular acknowledgement is due to Thildé Stevens and Anna van den Berg of the Department of Social Development, Bridget Dillon of the Department for International Development and Neil Cohen of USAID for their support of this study. The efforts of the team at Development Research Africa who undertook the field work must also be commended. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Joint Population Conference, Durban, 6–8 October 2004 and the Forum on African Development and Poverty Reduction: The ‘Macro-Micro Linkage’, Cape Town, 13–15 October 2004.

¹As we do not know how many individuals who had been born or had died since the previous wave had also moved between households, we cannot precisely disaggregate changes in membership into natural increase and changes in affiliation.

²Consider a simplified scenario in which all new households are established by a young couple who promptly have children: tracking all the children of cores who do this would lead to 100 per cent over-representation of such households in KIDS. In practice, it is unlikely that the scan identified every next-generation household and only 68 per cent of those it did identify were interviewed. Thus, the panel has remained broadly representative because of offsetting biases resulting from the design of the study and high attrition of next-generation (K) households.

³In order to derive this poverty line, Hoogeveen & Özler use a cost-of-calories approach in combination with the 2000 Income and Expenditure Survey undertaken by Statistics South Africa. Several options are suggested, and we have chosen to use their ‘lower bound’ estimate.

⁴The maximum of the scale has been cut at seven times the poverty line in order to better show the data at the lower end of the income distribution.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian M Timæus

∗ ∗Associate Professor, School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal; Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside; Professor, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Professor, Centre for Population Studies, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. In 2004, the KIDS team included Michelle Adato, Tania Boler, Einar Braathen, Thabani Buthelezi, Suriya Dawaad, Lawrence Haddad, Nina Hunter, Masinghita Khandlela, Mimi Ndokweni, Catherine van Ruit, Myra Taylor, Myriam Velia, Ingrid Woolard and Futhoshi Yamauchi. Particular acknowledgement is due to Thildé Stevens and Anna van den Berg of the Department of Social Development, Bridget Dillon of the Department for International Development and Neil Cohen of USAID for their support of this study. The efforts of the team at Development Research Africa who undertook the field work must also be commended. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Joint Population Conference, Durban, 6–8 October 2004 and the Forum on African Development and Poverty Reduction: The ‘Macro-Micro Linkage’, Cape Town, 13–15 October 2004.