Myanmar Household Welfare Survey Round Five: Note on Sample Characteristics and Weighting

Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity. 2023. Myanmar Household Welfare Survey round five: Note on sample characteristics and weighting. Data Paper. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. handle: 10568/141615. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/141615

The fifth round of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS)–a nationwide phone panel consisting of 12,953 households–was implemented between March, 2023 and June, 2023. Of those households, 3,981 households were interviewed in Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, and Round 5, all the previous survey rounds. Another 1,673 households were interviewed in Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, and Round 5 only. The remaining 5,732 households participated in at least one other round of MHWS. Finally, 3,256 new households that had never participated in any other rounds were added in Round 5 to replace the households that dropped out of the sample after the fourth round.

The objective of the survey was to collect data on a wide range of household and individual welfare indicators–including wealth, livelihoods, unemployment, food insecurity, diet quality, health shocks, and coping strategies–in a country exceptionally hard hit by conflict, severe economic collapse, and several damaging waves of COVID-19. The respondents interviewed in the MHWS were purposely selected from a large phone database aimed at being representative at the region/state level and urban/rural level in Myanmar. A novel sampling strategy in combination with the development of household and population weights allows for estimates that are nationally, regionally, and urban/rural representative.