Living Standards Survey 1992-1993

HOUSEHOLD QUESTIONNAIRE

The household questionnaire contains modules (sections) to collect data on household demographic structure, education, health, employment, migration, housing conditions, fertility, agricultural activities, household non-agricultural businesses, food expenditures, non-food expenditures, remittances and other income sources, savings and loans, and anthropometric (height and weight) measures.

For some sections (survey information, housing, and respondents for second round) the individual designated by the household members as the household head provided responses. For some others (agro-pastoral activities, non-farm self employment, food expenditures, non-food expenditures) a member identified as most knowledgeable provided responses. Identification codes for respondents of different sections indicate who provided the information. In sections where the information collected pertains to individuals (education, health, employment, migration, and fertility) each member of the household was asked to respond for himself or herself, except that parents were allowed to respond for younger children. In the case of the employment and fertility sections it is possible that the information was not provided by the relevant person; variables in these sections indicate when this is the case. The household questionnaire was completed in two interviews two weeks apart: Sections 0-8, were conducted in the first interview, sections 9-14 were conducted in the second interview, and section 15 was administered in both interviews. The survey was designed so that more sensitive issues such as credit and savings were discussed near the end. The content of each module is briefly described below.

I. FIRST INTERVIEW

Section 0 SURVEY INFORMATION
0A HOUSEHOLD HEAD AND RESPONDENT INFORMATION
0B SUMMARY OF SURVEY RESULTS
0C OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS

The date of the interview, the religion, ethnic group of the household head, the language used by the respondent and other technical information related to the interview are noted. Section 0B summarizes the results of the survey visits, i.e. whether a section was completed on the first visit or the second visit. Section 0C, not entered into the computer, contains remarks of the interviewer and the supervisor. Since the data in Section 0C are retained only on the questionnaires, researchers cannot gain access to them without checking the original questionnaires at the General Statistical Office in Hanoi.

Section 1 HOUSEHOLD MEMBERSHIP
1A HOUSEHOLD ROSTER
1B INFORMATION ON PARENTS OF HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS
1C CHILDREN RESIDING ELSEWHERE

The roster in Section 1A lists the age, sex, marital status and relation to household head of all people who spent the previous night in that household and for household members who are temporarily away from home. The household head is listed first and receives the personal id code 1. Household members were defined to include "all the people who normally live and eat their meals together in this dwelling. Those who were absent more than nine of the last twelve months were excluded, except for the head of the household and infants less than three months old. A lunar calendar is provided in the questionnaire to help respondents recall the year and month they were born. For individuals who are married and whose spouse resides in the household, the personal id number of the spouse is noted. This way information on the spouse can be collected by appropriately merging information from the roster and other parts of the survey.

Section 1B collects information on the parents of all household members. For individuals whose parents reside in the household, parents’ personal id numbers are noted, and information can be obtained by appropriately merging information from other parts of the survey. For individuals whose parents do not reside in the household, information is recorded on whether each parent is alive, as well as their schooling and occupation. In section 1C information is collected for children of household members living elsewhere. This information is only collected for children below 30 years of age. Children who have died are not included. All living children are listed along with the personal id number of their father and mother (if parents reside in the household). Then information on the age, schooling, and current place of residence of each such child is recorded.

Section 2 SCHOOLING

In Section 2, data were collected on self-reported literacy and numeracy, school attendance, completion, and current enrollment for all household members of creche or preschool age and older. The interpretation of creche or pre-school age appears to have varied, with the result that while education information is available for some children of pre-school age, not all pre-school children were included in this section. But for ages 6 and above information is available for nearly all individuals, so in essence the data on schooling can be said to apply to all persons 6 age and above. For those who were enrolled in school at the time of the survey, information was also collected on school attendance, distance, travel time, expenses, and scholarships.

Section 3 HEALTH

In this section, data on any illness or injury experienced in the 4 weeks preceding the date of interview were obtained for all household members. For those who reported being ill in the past 4 weeks, information was obtained on the duration and type of illness, type of care sought, distance to health provider, travel time, and cost of medication and consultation. All individuals, whether ill or not in the past 4 weeks, were asked if they had been ill in the year before the survey, and if so the total amount they had spent on health care in the previous year. At the request of the World Health Organization, several questions on smoking were asked of all individuals 6 years of age and older.

Section 4 EMPLOYMENT
4A TYPE OF WORK AND JOB SEARCH
4B MAIN JOB DURING THE PAST SEVEN DAYS
4C SECONDARY JOB DURING THE PAST SEVEN DAYS
4D SEARCH FOR ADDITIONAL EMPLOYMENT
4E MAIN JOB DURING THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS
4F EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
4G SECONDARY JOB DURING THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS
4H OTHER ACTIVITIES

All individuals age six and older were asked to respond to the economic activity questions in Section 4, beginning with questions on the nature of their work in the last seven days. For persons who did not work in last seven days, data were collected on job search, and reason for not seeking employment. For work in last seven days, information was collected on hours, length of employment, type of employer, taxes, distance and travel time to place of work, money and in-kind compensation, and benefits. Similar questions were asked on the secondary job in the last seven days. Questions were asked on search for additional employment, including the kind of work sought and the lowest acceptable wage. If main work in the last twelve months was different from the main or secondary job in the last seven days, the complete set of questions was answered for that work as well. Type of work and years of experience at any work prior to that of the main job in the last twelve months were collected. Again, if there was a secondary job in the last twelve months different from the other jobs, data on work conditions and compensation were collected. Days and hours spent doing household chores were collected for each household member age seven and older.

Occupation and sector of employment codes are not available in the household questionnaire. It is not possible to determine the specific occupation these stand for, but based on the ordering of the codes it is possible to determine the broad classification they fall under (for example, construction, transport, storage, communication, etc.). These can, therefore, be treated as "other occupations" within the broad classification. Finally, the last 4 codes in Appendix F of the Basic Information document, namely, X, X-1, X-2, and X-3, appear as 0, -1, -2, and -3 in the data. The Xs were dropped from these codes so that the variable could be stored as a numeric variable.

Section 5 MIGRATION

All household members age 15 or older responded to the questions on migration in Section 5. If not born at current place of residence, respondents were asked whether the place of birth was a village, town, city, or other. The age at which such individuals left their place of birth was recorded, as well as the main reason for leaving. In addition, individuals were asked the main reason for coming to the current place of residence, from what region they had come to the current place, and whether the previous place was a village, town or city. Finally, respondents were asked how many places they had lived for periods of more than three months in their life?

Section 6 HOUSING
6A TYPE OF DWELLING
6B HOUSING EXPENSES
6C HOUSING CHARACTERISTICS

Section 6 contains information on the type of dwelling, housing expenses, and housing characteristics for all households interviewed. Information was collected on the number of rooms in the dwelling, ownership status, wall material, roof material, water source, toilet type, utilities expenses, and square meters of living area. Respondents for all 4800 households, regardless of whether the dwelling was owned or rented, were asked for the resale value of the dwelling. This section also contains information on type of cooking fuel used, the time and distance involved in collecting wood, and whether it is the primary cooking fuel used by the household.

Section 7 RESPONDENTS CHOSEN FOR ROUND TWO (the second interview)

In Section 7, the principal respondent for Round One was asked to identify: 1) the household member who knows the most about all the agricultural and livestock activities of the household; 2) the household member who shops for food; and 3) the household member who knows the most about the other household expenses, income and savings of household members. The respondent was also asked to identify the three most important businesses and trades belonging to the household, and the household members who know most about them. Finally, a woman was selected at random from among the women in the household between the ages of 15 and 49 to respond to the fertility module. In principle, those identified in this section for interviewing in later sections should be the ones who are actually interviewed in those sections. While this is true for many households there are some cases where the respondents for the agriculture, food expense, and non-food expense sections are different from those identified in this section. This is possible if the person identified was not present at the time the section was completed (e.g. the second visit to the household).

Section 8 FERTILITY
8A FERTILITY HISTORY
8B FAMILY PLANNING

In each household one woman 15-49 years old, randomly selected in Section 7, responded to the questions in Section 8. If a household contained no woman in this age range, Section 8 was not completed. The woman was asked if she had ever been pregnant and, if so, whether she had ever given birth. Women who respond that they have are asked the birth date and sex of all children they have given birth to, including children who did not survive. If the child is not alive the woman is asked how long it survived. The woman is asked about the birth and breastfeeding of her last child, the age at which she was married, and the number of miscarriages she has had. Section 8B gathers information on knowledge, use, source and cost of six modern and six traditional methods of family planning. In using data from this section it should be kept in mind that unlike the Demographic and Health Surveys and the World Fertility Surveys, interviewers were not necessarily women.

II. SECOND INTERVIEW

Section 9 AGRO-PASTORAL ACTIVITIES
9A1 AGRICULTURAL LAND
9A2 FOREST LAND
9A3 SELLING OR BUYING LAND
9A4 VACANT LOT, BALD HILL, LAND CLEARING RECLAMATION
9A5 AGRICULTURAL TAXES
9B1 PADDY
9B2 OTHER FOOD CROPS
9B3 ANNUAL INDUSTRIAL CROPS
9B4 PERENNIAL INDUSTRIAL CROPS
9B5 FRUIT CROPS
9B6 FOREST TREES
9C CROP BYPRODUCTS
9D FARM INPUTS
9E TRANSFORMATION OF HOMEGROWN CROPS
9F LIVESTOCK
9G OTHER ANIMAL PRODUCTS
9H RAISING/PLANTING WATER PRODUCTS
9I EXTENSION CONTACTS FOR LIVESTOCK
9J LIVESTOCK EXPENDITURES
9K HAND TOOLS
9L FARMING EQUIPMENT

In Section 9 the respondent was the household member identified in Section 7 as the one most knowledgeable about the household’s agricultural and pastoral activities. Most questions refer to the past twelve months. This section is by far the largest section of the household questionnaire, with many subsections that contain information on different aspects of agricultural production and related livestock activities -- collectively referred to as agro-pastoral activities.

Sections 9A1 to 9A5 collect information on household’s control over land of different tenures. These include land allocated by the commune, auctioned land, privately held land, rented/sharecropped land, and swidden land. In each case data are obtained on total land size, size of irrigated land, and payments for use of land. For annual crop land information is also obtained on quality of land. Similar information is obtained on water surface cultivated, forest land controlled, land reclaimed from a bald hill, newly ploughed land, and roadside/riverside land. In these sections data are also obtained on purchases and sales of land, and land taxes paid by the household.

Section 9B1 to 9B6 contain detailed output information for all crops grown by the household. This information is obtained separately for each crop and includes (in most cases) information on quantity produced, value of output, quantity sold in the market and given to the cooperative, quantity kept for seeds, quantity fed to livestock, and quantity given as gifts. In the case of paddy information is obtained, separately, for the summer crop, winter crop, and the autumn crop. It should be remembered that while data is obtained for each crop cultivated by a household, it is not possible to link the information on land tenure (and size) with output information to determine the tenure structure of land on which a certain crop is cultivated -- unless a household cultivates only one crop on the land it cultivates. Section 9C contains information on crop byproducts.

Section 9D obtains detailed information on seeds, manure, fertilizer, insecticides, and transportation for all crops cultivated by a household. This information is also crop-specific and can, theoretically, be linked with the output information in the earlier sections by matching the datasets by household codes and crop codes. Information on other inputs such as hired labor, packing and storage costs, etc., are obtained at an aggregated level for each household. Other crop-specific information obtained in this section consists of data on home consumption and on the use of agricultural extension services.

Section 9E contains information on transformation of home grown crops that were subsequently sold. This includes data on output for sale, codes of household members who participated in the production process, number of sales, revenues from these sales, and costs of production. Section 9F collects information on livestock, poultry, and other animals that are either consumed by a household or generate income. These data include an inventory of current numbers possessed, the numbers born, sold, consumed, given away or lost, and the numbers bought by a household. Also included is information on the value of current stocks, revenue from sales, and purchase costs. Section 9G then collects information on animal products such as milk, eggs, silk, manure, etc. Here information is restricted to revenue from sales. In section 9H similar information is collected for water animals (fish, shrimp, etc.).
Section 9I collects information on extension services for livestock, and section 9J contains information on livestock expenditures. Finally, section 9L and 9K collect data on implements and farm machinery owned by the household.

Section 10 NON-FARM SELF-EMPLOYMENT
10A WORKING CONDITIONS
10B EXPENDITURES
10C REVENUES
10D BUSINESS ASSETS

Section 10 gathers data on household businesses for the three most important enterprises operated by the household. The respondent for each enterprise is the household member most familiar with its operation (as identified in Section 7). Data are gathered on the ownership, number of employees, and type of employee compensation for each enterprise. For each business, expenditures over the last twelve months on wages, raw materials, and taxes are collected. The respondent is asked how much, in money and goods, was received from sales and how much of the enterprise’s product was consumed by the household since the first interview. Information on ownership, sales and purchases of assets -- buildings, land, vehicles, tools and other durable goods -- in the last twelve months is also collected.

Section 11 FOOD EXPENSES AND HOME PRODUCTION
11A HOLIDAY EXPENSES
11B NORMAL EXPENSES

In Section 11A the amounts spent on holidays, primarily Tet (New Year), 15th January, 15th July, Moon festival, and Independence day. The range of food items for which such expense information is obtained is smaller than that for which information is obtained in the Section 11B. The main reason for separating holiday expenses from normal expenses, a departure from the standard LSMS survey format, is to take into account the fact that the Tet holiday in Viet Nam often represents significant departures from normal spending patterns -- particularly unusually high expenditures.

Section 11B collects detailed information on market purchases and consumption from home production for forty-five food items. Information is obtained for expenses since the interviewer’s first visit. For a longer recall period (12 months) data are obtained on the number of months (in the preceding 12 months) each food item was purchased, the number of times purchases were made during those months, the quantity purchased each time, and the value per purchase. These four pieces of information can be combined to obtain the total expenditure on food in the 12 months before the date of the interview. Note that this, in effect, is a variablerecall procedure because the time frame for which purchase information is provided by a respondent can differ for two food items, as well as across respondents. Besides market purchases (including barter), information is also collected on consumption from home production. Again data are obtained on the number of months each item was consumed but, unlike market purchases, the information of the quantity and value of consumption is obtained by asking a single question on the total amount for the past 12 months (as opposed to asking how often purchased each month, quantity purchased each time, etc.).

Section 12 NON-FOOD EXPENDITURES & INVENTORY OF DURABLE GOODS
12A DAILY EXPENSES
12B ANNUAL EXPENSES
12C INVENTORY OF DURABLE GOODS
12D EXPENSES FOR REMITTANCES

Section 12 collects information on non-food household expenditures from the household member identified in Section 7 as the one most able to answer non-food expenditure questions. In section 12A respondents were asked to recall the amount spent since the first interview (approximately two weeks) on daily expenses such as lottery tickets, cigarettes, soap, personal care products, cooking fuel, matches and candles, and gasoline. In section 12B expenditure data, both in the last two weeks and the last twelve months, were collected for shoes, cloth, clothing, home repairs, public transport, paper supplies, kitchen equipment, medical services, domestic servants, jewelry, entertainment and other goods (see household questionnaire). Purchase price, year of purchase, and resale value of durable goods owned were collected in Section 12C. [ Earlier versions of the data contained two variables instead of a single one for question number 3. This was the form in which data were received from Hanoi. The reason purchase price information was coded in two variables was because there was a devaluation in 1986, and so purchase price information from years before 1986, if coded in thousands of dongs, would appear very small. Data were therefore presented in two variables with the first one representing thousands of dongs, and the second one representing amounts less than a thousand dongs. These variables have now been combined so that the most recent version of the data contain a single variable for purchase price in thousands of dongs.]

Relation and location of the recipients of remittances sent out from the household are noted in Section 12D (remittances received by the household are recorded in Section 13A).

Section 13 OTHER INCOME
13A INCOME FROM REMITTANCES
13B MISCELLANEOUS INCOME

Section 13 collects data on money and goods that come into the household as remittances or from other sources unrelated to employment, such as employee welfare funds, dowries, sale of consumer durables, rental of buildings, etc.

Section 14 CREDIT AND SAVING
14A MONEY AND GOODS LENT AND BORROWED
14B LOANS CONTRACTED
14C SAVINGS

Section 14 collects information on the amount of indebtedness of household members to people or institutions outside the household. If money or goods have been borrowed, or borrowed and repaid by any household member in the last twelve months, information is collected on those loans, including the source and amount of the loan, interest, side payments, collateral, repayment schedule, reason for borrowing, and number of loans from the same source. The household is asked to list different types of savings, if any, including bank deposits, bonds, cash (dong), US dollars, gold and value of paddy. The respondent is also asked the total value of all savings accounts.

Section 15 ANTHROPOMETRICS

Anthropometric measurements are completed for each household member. Data were collected on the household member’s age, gender, date of measurement, weight, height, and arm circumference. It was also noted if female respondents were pregnant or breastfeeding. If a person was not measured the reason why is noted.

COMMUNITY QUESTIONNAIRE

A Community questionnaire was administered by the team supervisor and completed with the help of village chiefs, teachers, government officials and health care workers. The questionnaire was administered only in rural areas, i.e. commune numbers 1 to 120.

Section 1 (DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION) includes the population of the community, a list of principal ethnic groups and religions, the length of time the community has existed and whether or not it has grown. Section 2 (ECONOMY AND NFRASTRUCTURE) questions include a list of principal economic activities, access to a motorable road, electricity, pipe-borne water, restaurant or food stall, post office, bank, daily market and public transport. There are also questions on employment, migration for jobs, and the existence of community development projects. Section 3 (EDUCATION) asks distance to primary and middle schools. For up to three primary schools, the nearest middle school and the nearest secondary school, information is obtained on whether it is public or private, whether it is for boys or girls, or both, how many classes there are, and when it was built. Enrollment rates and reasons why children do not attend school are also collected. Section 4 (HEALTH) collects data on distance and travel time to the nearest of each of several types of health workers (doctor, nurse, pharmacist, midwife, family planning worker, community health worker, traditional birth attendant and traditional healer) and each type of several types of health facilities (hospital, dispensary, pharmacy, maternity home, health post and family planning clinic). The questions in Section 5 (AGRICULTURE) include the type of crops grown in the community, how often and when they are planted and harvested, and how the harvest is generally sold. This section also includes questions on the availability of an extension center, agricultural cooperatives, and machinery, and
questions on the use of pesticides and irrigation. Data are also gathered on the local land market and agricultural and non-agricultural wages in the community.

PRICE QUESTIONNAIRE

In rural areas (commune numbers 1 to 120), price data were collected by the team supervisor for 36 food items, 31 nonfood items, 9 medicines, 7 insecticides/fertilizers, and 5 types of services from local markets. Three separate observations were made and these did not necessarily involve actual purchases. In some communes fewer than 3 observations were made, either because of a lack of three distinct markets, or for some other reason. A separate set of prices are available for urban areas (commune numbers 121 to 150). These were collected by the General Statistical Office as part of a separate effort to construct price indices in Viet Nam, and their values appear to be comparable to those of the rural prices.