Tanzania - Survey of Household Welfare and Labour 2007-2008

SHWALITA, short for ‘Survey of Household Welfare and Labour in Tanzania’, is a 4,000 household survey that randomly assigns different survey modules to its respondents. The survey consists of 3 separate experiments, carefully bundled into one survey:(i) A consumption experiment in which we developed eight alternative consumption questionnaires which were randomly distributed across 4,000 households. These eight designs vary by method (3 diaries and 5 recall modules), length of reference period in recall modules, and the number of items in the recall modules.(ii) labour module experiments in which we assess the effect of different ways of collecting labour statistics. It uses two different modules, a long module and a short module, and administers each to either the person him/herself or to someone else in the household answering on their behalf (a proxy respondent). Both proxy respondents and self-reporting respondents are sampled randomly from the roster of household members.(iii) subjective welfare experiments in which we use an innovative approach to enhance comparability of subjective welfare questions. The technique, developed in political sciences by Gary King, involves the respondent to provide scaled answers on qualitative questions (on a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about….). In order to ‘anchor’ the response the respondent is given a ‘vignette’ a short, but powerful story about a fictitious person and is then asked to place this person on the same scale. The placing of the vignette on the same scale allows answers to become more comparable across households, communities and countries.

SHWALITA为“坦桑尼亚家庭福利与劳动调查（Survey of Household Welfare and Labour in Tanzania）”的缩写，是一项覆盖4000户家庭的抽样调查，会为受访对象随机分配不同的调查模块。本次调查包含三项独立实验，并将其整合为一套统一的调查方案：
(i) 消费模块实验：我们设计了8种差异化的消费问卷，在4000户家庭中随机发放。这8种问卷在数据收集方式（3种日记式问卷与5种回忆式问卷）、回忆式问卷的参考时段，以及回忆式问卷的条目数量三个维度存在差异。
(ii) 劳动模块实验：本实验旨在评估不同劳动统计数据收集方式的效果。我们采用长、短两种调查模块，并将其随机分配给受访者本人，或是由家庭内其他成员代为作答的代理受访者。代理受访者与自填受访者均从家庭在册成员名单中随机抽取。
(iii) 主观福利实验：我们采用创新性方法提升主观福利类问题的跨样本可比性。该方法由加里·金（Gary King）在政治科学领域提出，要求受访者针对定性问题按1至5分量表给出评分（例如“你对……的感受如何？”）。为锚定作答基准，受访者会先阅读一段“锚定 vignette”——一段关于虚构人物的简短且具有典型性的小故事，随后需将该虚构人物置于同一评分量表中进行定位。通过对锚定 vignette 的量表定位结果进行校准，可实现不同家庭、社区乃至国家间主观福利回答的可比性提升。