Abstract

The Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey (ESS) is a collaborative project between the Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia (CSA) and the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) team. The objective of the LSMS-ISA is to collect multi-topic, household-level panel data with a special focus on improving agriculture statistics and generating a clearer understanding of the link between agriculture and other sectors of the economy. The project also aims to build capacity, share knowledge across countries, and improve survey methodologies and technology.

ESS is a long-term project to collect panel data. The project responds to the data needs of the country, given the dependence of a high percentage of households in agriculture activities in the country. The ESS collects information on household agricultural activities along with other information on the households like human capital, other economic activities, access to services and resources. The ability to follow the same households over time makes the ESS a new and powerful tool for studying and understanding the role of agriculture in household welfare over time as it allows analyses of how households add to their human and physical capital, how education affects earnings, and the role of government policies and programs on poverty, inter alia. The ESS is the first panel survey to be carried out by the CSA that links a multi-topic household questionnaire with detailed data on agriculture.

Geographic coverage

National Regional Urban and Rural

Analysis unit

• Household
• Individual
• Community

Universe

The survey covered all de jure households excluding prisons, hospitals, military barracks, and school dormitories.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sampling frame for the new ESS4 is based on the updated 2018 pre-census cartographic database of enumeration areas by CSA. The ESS4 sample is a two-stage stratified probability sample. The ESS4 EAs in rural areas are the subsample of the AgSS EA sample. That means, the first stage of sampling in the rural areas entailed selecting enumeration areas (i.e. the primary sampling units) using simple random sampling (SRS) from the sample of the 2018 AgSS enumeration areas (EAs). The first stage of sampling for urban areas is selecting EAs directly from the urban frame of EAs within each region using systematically with PPS. This is designed in way that automatically results in a proportional allocation of the urban sample by zone within each region. Following the selection of sample EAs, they are allocated by urban rural strata using power allocation which is happened to be closer to proportional allocation.

The second stage of sampling for the ESS4 is the selection of households to be surveyed in each sampled EA using systematic random sampling. From the rural EAs, 10 agricultural households are selected as a subsample of the households selected for the AgSS and 2 non-agricultural households are selected from the non-agriculture households list in that specific EA. The non-agriculture household selection follows the same sampling method i.e. systematic random sampling. One important issue to note in ESS4 sampling is that the total number of agriculture households per EA remains 10 even though there are less than 2 or no non-agriculture households are listed and sampled in that EA.

For urban areas, a total of 15 households are selected per EA regardless of the households’ economic activity. The households are selected using systematic random sampling from the total households listed in that specific EA. Table 3.2 presents the distribution of sample households for ESS4 by region, urban and rural stratum. A total of 7527 households are sampled for ESS4 based on the above sampling strategy.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument

The survey consisted of five questionnaires, similar with the questionnaires used during the previous rounds with revisions based on the results of the previous rounds as well as on identified areas of need for new data.

The household questionnaire was administered to all households in the sample; multiple modules in the household questionnaire were administered per eligible household members in the sample.

The community questionnaire was administered to a group of community members to collect information on the socio-economic indicators of the enumeration areas where the sample households reside.

The three agriculture questionnaires consisting of a post-planting agriculture questionnaire, post-harvest agriculture questionnaire and livestock questionnaire were administered to all household members (agriculture holders) who are engaged in agriculture activities. A holder is a person who exercises management control over the operations of the agricultural holdings and makes the major decisions regarding the utilization of the available resources. S/he has technical and economic responsibility for the holding. S/he may operate the holding directly as an owner or as a manager. Hence it is possible to have more than one holder in single sampled households. As a result we have administered more than one agriculture questionnaire in a single sampled household if the household has more than one holder.

Household questionnaire: The household questionnaire provides information on education; health (including anthropometric measurement for children); labor and time use; financial inclusion; assets ownership and user right; food and non-food expenditure; household nonfarm activities and entrepreneurship; food security and shocks; safety nets; housing conditions; physical and financial assets; credit; tax and transfer; and other sources of household income. Household location is geo-referenced in order to be able to later link the ESS data to other available geographic data sets (See Appendix 1 for discussion of the geo-data provided with the ESS).

Community questionnaire: The community questionnaire solicits information on infrastructure; community organizations; resource management; changes in the community; key events; community needs, actions and achievements; and local retail price information.

Agriculture questionnaire: The post-planting and post-harvest agriculture questionnaires focus on crop farming activities and solicit information on land ownership and use; land use and agriculture income tax; farm labor; inputs use; GPS land area measurement and coordinates of household fields; agriculture capital; irrigation; and crop harvest and utilization. The livestock questionnaire collects information on animal holdings and costs; and production, cost and sales of livestock by products.

Cleaning operations

Final data cleaning was carried out on all data files. Only errors that could be clearly and confidently fixed by the team were corrected; errors that had no clear fix were left in the datasets. Cleaning methods for these errors are left up to the data user.

Response rate

ESS4 planned to interview 7,527 households from 565 enumeration areas (EAs) (Rural 316 EAs and Urban 249 EAs). A total of 6770 households from 535 EAs were interviewed for both the agriculture and household modules. The household module was not implemented in 30 EAs due to security reasons (See the Basic Information Document for additional information on survey implementation).