Maasai Household and Village Socioeconomic Status and Decisions in Ngorongoro - Maasai women and men survey, and village-level information

Village Assessment. A portion of the research team, the “village assessment” team, conducted semi-structured interviews and data collection in a specific village on the first of a two-day survey approach. This team met with the village head, members of the village council as available, a woman, a Maasai youth when available, and representatives from the health and school facilities to gain village-specific information. The village assessment included obtaining the list of households eligible for subsidized grain. The team then used that list as a sampling frame to generate a systematic random sample stratified by sub-village to select survey respondents. With a target of 20 interviews per village, the number of households surveyed per sub-village was determined based on the proportion of village households in each sub-village based on the number of households on the grain distribution list. To select households from the grain list, we divided the total number of subvillage households by the number of households to be surveyed and rounded down to get a new number, X. Each village leader was asked to select a random number, Y, between 1 and X. The team then selected the Yth household as a starting point on the list and sampled every Xth household from there until the end of the list was reached.
In the above case, the village leader was asked to pick a number between 1 and 43 for Sub-village A and between 1 and 45 for Sub-village B.

After the selection of households, we consulted with the village leader whether each woman on the list was expected to be home on the following day. If the woman was known to be traveling (e.g. at a regional market), we then asked about the ID-1 (ID number minus 1) household. If that person was not home, we then asked about the ID+1 household, then ID-2, and then ID+2 households. Both ID numbers and names were recorded for every person to be interviewed. Additionally, of all the women sampled in a village, a subset of 3-4 husbands of these women was then chosen to answer a men’s survey. The aim of the men’s survey was to serve as a comparison to the women’s survey. The village assessment team provided the enumeration team with the households to be surveyed and the information collected in the village assessment in the evening following the assessment and prior to the survey administration.

Survey administration. On the second day of data collection in each particular village, the team of enumerators divided the list of survey respondents among the enumerators. The protocol stated that if the enumerator arrived at someone's house and found no one home, they went to the nearest neighbor and interviewed them instead. If this person happened to be a co-wife of the original person that was supposed to be interviewed, that information was recorded in the survey. Show less..