General Household Survey 2010

In GHS 2009-2010:

The variable on care provision (Q129acre) in the GHS 2009 and 2010 should be used with caution. The question to collect the data (question 1.29a) asks:

"Does anyone in this household personally provide care for at least two hours per day to someone in the household who - owing to frailty, old age, disability, or ill-health cannot manage without help?"

Response codes (in the questionnaire, metadata, and dataset) are:

1 = No
2 = Yes, 2-19 hours per week
3 = Yes, 20-49 hours per week
4 = Yes, 50 + hours per week
5 = Do not know

There is inconsistency between the question, which asks about hours per day, and the response options, which record hours per week. The outcome that a respondent who gives care for one hour per day (7 hours/week) would presumably not answer this question. Someone giving care for 13 hours a week would also be excluded as though they do that do serious caregiving, which is incorrect.

In GHS 2009-2015:

The variable on land size in the General Household Survey questionnaire for 2009-2015 should be used with caution. The data comes from questions on the households' agricultural activities in Section 8 of the GHS questionnaire: Household Livelihoods: Agricultural Activities. Question 8.8b asks:

“Approximately how big is the land that the household use for production? Estimate total area if more than one piece.” One of the response category is worded as:

1 = Less than 500m2 (approximately one soccer field)

However, a soccer field is 5000 m2, not 500, therefore response category 1 is incorrect. The correct category option should be 5000 sqm. This response option is correct for GHS 2002-2008 and was flagged and corrected by Statistics SA in the GHS 2016.