RECOUP/Community scoping/Handout on Sample Household Census Form/handout

= Household Census Forms = Household census forms can be general but they are of most use if they are adapted for your own purposes.

This example was prepared for use in India in the RECOUP project, which accounts for several of its specific features:

1. There are more questions on schooling than you might need in a project with a different focus.
2. The information on young men and women who have moved out of the household was necessary because one RECOUP sub-project wanted to interview parents and their children.

1. Information on migrants was also important because RECOUP is concerned with the benefits of education: if young people used their skills to leave the community, we want to know about this .
2. We wanted to know what it means to be poor in four different countries, so we tried to have similar questions about what people own. (It is not a good idea to ask about incomes, and asking about expenditures can take a lot of time. People are not always willing to list what they own either, but this is often less problematic.)
3. We also wanted to collect better information about people with disability.

If at all possible, keep the census form to two pages overall, as it will be quick and easy to fill in the field. You will need a spare sheet anyway for households with more than 8 members. Try not to add more questions unless you are sure you want to know the answers: the extra information that has been collected may not be used. This is a rough and ready basic research tool with specific purposes - to provide a context and provide information for sampling, in particular - and it should not take a lot of time.

The data should be entered into a relational database such as Access to eventually provide a complete household listing and summary statistics etc. You do not need to use SPSS or another statistical package: the idea is not to carry out statistical tests but to be able to summarise key features of the community.

You should decide whether researchers should code in the field (see the final page for an example) or have the coding done after returning to the office.

Religion‚ Ethnicity‚..‚Head of Household ‚s/o(w/o)‚

SECTION A

= NAME =	Sex	Age	Marital status	Relation to # 1	Education status	Class completed	Work status	Current work/school details
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

SECTION B

NON-RESIDENTS (out-married, labour migrants):	Relation To HH	Age	Marital status	Class completed	Work status	Current work/school details	Destination	Since when?	Why?

SECTION C

= MARRIED WOMEN =	Birthplace	Distance	Marriage date	prior relationship, if any

SECTION D

1. HOUSING, ASSETS AND FACILITIES

All brick/concrete		No. of rooms		Bicycle		Radio/tape		Flush toilet
Some brick/concrete		Air cooler		Scooter/ motorcycle		TV		Cooking medium
Not brick/concrete		Fridge		Car		Mobile		Electricity
		Pumpset		Tractor		Telephone

2. Land and Livestock

Local units	Owned	Cultivated	Livestock	Cows	Buffaloes/ox	Sheep/goat
Shared ownership			Number shared
Sole ownership			Number sole

SECTION E

OTHER INFORMATION (in each case enter information separately for each person, giving his/her number in the list on the front page of this form)

1. Disability

Type of Impairment:	Seeing	Hearing	Speaking	Walking	Learning	Personal care
Person numbers

2. Any individual who is or was a member of the following?

	Elected Panchayat	Caste Panchayat	SHG	CHC (Asha etc)	VEC	PTA/MTA
Person numbers

3. Has any individual attended any of the following?

Training	ITI	polytechnic	Other govt. training	Private training	NGO training	Apprenticeship at garage/crafts
Person numbers

COMMENTS

Coding manual

Section A

Sex	1. Male 2. Female
Age	In completed years
Marital status	1. Unmarried 2. Married, not yet living together 3. Married 4. Separated/divorced 5. Widow/widower 6. Any other
Relation to head	Use simple codes, and add more, if required. Make a note of it 1. Self H: husband; W: wife HB: Husband's father, HM: Husband's Mother; WF, WM HB: Husband's brother, HZ: husband's sister; WB, WZ S: Son, D: daughter; SW: Son's wife, DH: Daughter's husband SS: son's son, SD: son's daughter, DS: daughter's son, DD: Daughter's daughter
Education status	1. currently enrolled 2. never enrolled 3. dropouts
Class completed	0 for those who have not completed class 1 (includes never enrolled and those studying in preschool) Add number of years successfully completed in college to 12, for those who have been to college
Work status	1. working full time 2. working part time 3. working seasonally 4. not working
School/Work details	Fill in all that appears relevant for our sampling purposes

Section B - other codes are same as section A

Destination	Give the name of town/village, district and state
Since when?	Give the month (if possible) and year.
Why?	Note all the reasons (if more than one)

Section C

Birthplace	Give the name of town/village, district and state
Distance	In Kms
Marriage date	Give the month (if possible) and year.
Prior relationship	Note their response

Section D

Tick options which are applicable, and a "dash" when not. Put in numbers where applicable

Cooking medium	1: Gas; 2: kerosene/coal/wood (purchased); 3: collected (free of cost)
Electricity	1: permanent connection, 2: temporary/illegal connection, 3: None

Section E: Give numbers in appropriate boxes. "0" when there are none

Comments: Note down whatever additional details you have heard or observed during the interview. It is very important.

---

Singal, N., and Jeffery, R. (2008). Qualitative Research Skills Workshop: A Facilitator's Reference Manual, http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/RECOUP, Cambridge: RECOUP (Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty, http://recoup.educ.cam.ac.uk/). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. (original page)