October Household Survey 1998

South Africa, 1998

Get Microdata

Reference ID

zaf-statssa-ohs-1998-v1.2

Producer(s)

Statistics South Africa

Collections

Statistics South Africa

Metadata

DDI/XML JSON

Study website

Created on

Nov 22, 2010

Last modified

May 03, 2021

Page views

106321

Downloads

20020

Identification

Survey ID number

zaf-statssa-ohs-1998-v1.2

Title

October Household Survey 1998

Country

Name	Country code
South Africa	zaf

Study type

Household Survey [hh]

Series Information

Statistics South Africa. October Household Survey 1998 [dataset]. Version 1.2. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa (formerly Central Statistical Service) [producer], 2000. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25828/xc07-zq48

Abstract

The October Household Survey is an annual survey based on a survey of a large number of households (ranging from 16 000 in 1996 through to 30 000 in 1997 and 1998, depending on the availability of funding). It covers a range of development indicators, including unemployment rates (official and expanded), according to standard definitions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Kind of Data

Sample survey data

Unit of Analysis

Households and individuals

Version

Version Description

v1.2: Edited, anonymised dataset for public distribution.

Version Notes

Version 1 was received from Stats SA.

Version 1.1: Variables that were strings unnecessarily were converted to numeric variables.

Version 1.2: All files with weight variables (9 of the 11 files) had their weight variable divided by 10 000. This was following a note in Stats SA's metadata saying that the analyst should do this.

Scope

Notes

The scope of the OHS 1998 includes: employment, unemployment, informal sector, internal migration, services available by type of dwelling, access to health and social services, safety and well-bring of household, households by average household size and type of dwelling, level of education, quality of life, health statistics, vital statistics.

Coverage

Geographic Coverage

The survey had national coverage.

Geographic Unit

The lowest level of geographic aggregation for the data is province.

Universe

The survey covered households and household members in households in the nine provinces of South Africa

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators

Name
Statistics South Africa

Sampling

Sampling Procedure

A sample of 20 000 households was drawn in 2 000 enumerator areas (EAs) (that is 10 households per enumerator area). A two-stage sampling procedure was applied and the sample was stratified, clustered and selected to meet the requirements of probability sampling. The sample was based on the 1996 Population Census enumerator areas and the estimated number of people from the administrative records of the 1996 population Census. The sampled population excluded all prisoners in prisons, patients in hospitals, people residing in boarding houses and hotels (whether temporary or semi-permanent). The sample was explicitly stratified by province, Transitional Metropolitan Council (TMC)and District Council (DC). A square root method was used for the allocation of the sample EAs to the explicit strata.

Within each explicit stratum the EAs were stratified by simply arranging them in geographical order by magisterial district and, within the magisterial district, by EA. The allocated number of EAs was systematically selected with probability proportional to size in each stratum. The measure of size was the estimated number of people in Each EA. A systematic sample of 10 households was drawn.

Weighting

The 1996 population Census was used as a basis for the weighting.

Household weights were calculated by using the reciprocal of the inclusion probabilities.

Since the sample selection was done in two stages (i.e. first stage - selection of an EA, second stage - selection of a household in the selected EA):

The inclusion probability of an EA (say p1):
Since this was done with probability proportional to size (size being the number of persons residing in the EA),

p1 = m . Ai /S Ai

mi - number of EAs in the sample in the i-th stratum (where stratum is the District Council in a province)
Ai - number of persons residing in the selected EA
S Ai - total number of persons in the population in the i-th stratum

The inclusion probability of the household (say p2):
Since ten (10) households (per EA) were selected systematically,

p2 = 10/number of households in the selected EA

Household weight = (1/p1.p2). Relative scaling was done on this weight to cater for the urban/non-urban split per province.

To calculate the person weight, the data was post-stratified by province, gender and age group (5 year age groups). The 1996 Census figures (adjusted for growth) were used as benchmarks. Relative scaling was also done on this weight to cater for the population group and urban/non-urban splits.

survey_instrument

Questionnaires

The data files in the October Household Survey 1997 (OHS 1997) correspond to the following sections in the questionnaire:
PERSON: Indivitual-level data from Section 1 and Section 4; BIRTHS: Data from Section 2; CHILDREN: Data from Section2; WORKER: Data from Section 3; MIGRANT: Data from Section 5; DEATHS: Data from Section 6; MIGRATION: Data from Section 7; DOMESTIC: Data from Section 8; HOUSE: Household-level data from Section 9

Errors in the marital codes in the original OHS 1998 questionnaire:
The questionnaire for the OHS 1998 originally provided by Statistics SA with the data files was incorrect. It was the OHS 1997 questionnaire with a OHS 1998 flap. The marital codes were different in the two surveys. In 1997, the codes for the variable Marital Status were:
1 Never married
2 Married - civil
3 Married - customary
4 Living together
5 Widowed
6 Divorced

In the 1998 survey, the codes for the variable Marital Status are:

1 Married - civil
2 Married - traditional (customary)
3 Living together
4 Widower/widow
5 Divorced/separated
6 Never married

DataFirst notified Statistics SA of this error on 13 July 2007 and they sent a corrected questionnaire. The correct questionnaire is version 2, available with the data since 2007.

Data Collection

Dates of Data Collection

Start	End
1998-10	1998-10

Data appraisal

Data Appraisal

Errors in the marital codes in the original OHS 1998 questionnaire:

The questionnaire for the OHS 1998 originally provided by Statistics SA with the data files was incorrect. It was the OHS 1997 questionnaire with a OHS 1998 flap. The marital codes were different in the two surveys. In 1997, the codes for the variable Marital Status were:
1 Never married
2 Married - civil
3 Married - customary
4 Living together
5 Widowed
6 Divorced

In the 1998 survey, the codes for the variable Marital Status are:

1 Married - civil
2 Married - traditional (customary)
3 Living together
4 Widower/widow
5 Divorced/separated
6 Never married

DataFirst notified Statistics SA of this error on 13 July 2007 and they sent a corrected questionnaire. The correct questionnaire is version 2, available with the data since 2007.

Data Access

Access authority

Name	Affiliation	URL	Email
DataFirst	University of Cape Town	http://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za	info@data1st.org

Access conditions

Public use files, available to all

Citation requirements

Disclaimer and copyrights

Contacts

Name	Affiliation	Email	URL
DataFirst Helpdesk	University of Cape Town	support@data1st.org	http://support.data1st.org/

Metadata production

Producers

Name	Affiliation	Role
DataFirst	University of Cape Town	Metadata producer

Date of Metadata Production

2021-03-24

Metadata version

DDI Document version

Version 3

Back to Catalog