Definition
WEALTHQ (V190) refers to the relative wealth of the household where the woman lives, divided into quintiles from the poorest (code 1) to the richest (code 5). The wealth index is defined in the DHS Recode Manuals as follows:
The wealth index is a composite measure of a household's cumulative living standard. The wealth index is calculated using easy-to-use data on a household's ownership of selected assets, such as televisions and bicycles; materials used for housing construction; and types of water access and sanitation facilities.
Generated with a statistical procedure known as principal components analysis, the wealth index places individual households on a continuous scale of relative wealth. DHS separates all interviewed households into five quintiles of wealth.
For additional information about the calculation and meaning of the wealth index, users should consult the summary information about the wealth index on The DHS Program website here [URL omitted from DDI.] and/or the DHS Comparative Report on "The DHS Wealth Index" here [URL omitted from DDI.].
The complementary variable WEALTHS reports the wealth index factor score for the woman's household in a specific sample. WEALTHQ and WEALTHS are included on the woman's record for Phase 5 forward only. IPUMS-DHS has made available these variables for Phase 2 forward, by linking the wealth index files to the woman's individual recode files.
The variables used to calculate wealth index quintiles and the level of wealth implied by a specific ranking are sample-specific. See Comparability.
