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Are we done yet? Response fatigue and rural livelihoods

Author

Listed:
  • Ambler, Kate
  • Herskowitz, Sylvan
  • Maredia, Karim M.

Abstract

Accurate understanding of peoples’ livelihoods activities is needed to inform effective policy. Existing evidence relies heavily on studies that use designated respondents to provide information about their household members, imposing significant costs on these respondents along with possible distortions in the data. In rural Ghana, we randomize the order that household members are asked about and estimate that response fatigue leads to undercounting of labor activities by 8% on average. Women are twice as impacted as men while youth are four times as impacted as older adults, distorting both within-household and population wide comparisons. These biases result from women and youth being listed systematically later in rosters and stronger effects of fatigue for them, conditional on roster position. The implications of our results extend to other topics of enquiry as well, wherever similar repetitive survey structures are deployed, such as birth records, plot-level inputs, and household consumption and expenditures.

Suggested Citation

  • Ambler, Kate & Herskowitz, Sylvan & Maredia, Karim M., 2020. "Are we done yet? Response fatigue and rural livelihoods," IFPRI discussion papers 1980, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1980
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    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/143565
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    Cited by:

    1. Gourlay,Sydney & Maggio,Giuseppe & Safyan,Anahit & Zezza,Alberto, 2022. "Measuring Land Tenure at the Individual Level : Lessons from Methodological Research in Armenia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10140, The World Bank.
    2. Werner Bönte & Dmitrii Galkin, 2025. "Relative Performance Evaluation and Executive Compensation: Adding Fuel to the Fire," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 46(7), pages 4070-4087, October.
    3. Talip Kilic & Goedele Van den & Gayatri Koolwal & Heather Moylan, 2023. "Are You Being Asked? Impacts of Respondent Selection on Measuring Employment in Malawi," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 32(5), pages 495-522.
    4. Delavallade, Clara & Godlonton, Susan, 2023. "Locking crops to unlock investment: Experimental evidence on warrantage in Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    5. Adzawla, William & Setsoafia, Edinam D. & Setsoafia, Eugene D. & Amoabeng-Nimako, Solomon & Atakora, Williams K. & Bindraban, Prem D., 2024. "Accuracy of agricultural data and implications for policy: Evidence from maize farmer recall surveys and crop cuts in the Guinea Savannah zone of Ghana," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    6. Jeong, Dahyeon & Aggarwal, Shilpa & Robinson, Jonathan & Kumar, Naresh & Spearot, Alan & Park, David Sungho, 2023. "Exhaustive or exhausting? Evidence on respondent fatigue in long surveys," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    7. Contreras, Ivette & Dinarte, Lelys & Palacios-Lopez, Amparo & Costa, Valentina & Esteban, Steffanny Romero, 2024. "Closing the Gaps : The Role of Screening Questions and Self-Reporting in Measuring Women’s and Youths’ Employment and Work," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10773, The World Bank.
    8. World Bank Group, 2023. "Women in the Workforce in Quetta," World Bank Publications - Reports 39704, The World Bank Group.
    9. Carletto,Calogero & Dillon,Andrew S. & Zezza,Alberto, 2021. "Agricultural Data Collection to Minimize Measurement Error and Maximize Coverage," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9745, The World Bank.
    10. Abate, Gashaw T. & Abay, Kibrom A. & Chamberlin, Jordan & Sebsibie, Samuel, 2024. "Measuring land rental market participation in smallholder agriculture can survey design innovations improve land market participation statistics?," IFPRI discussion papers 2255, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    11. Tilman Brück & Mekdim D. Regassa, 2023. "Usefulness and misrepresentation of phone surveys on COVID-19 and food security in Africa," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(2), pages 423-453, April.
    12. Gourlay, Sydney & Maggio, Giuseppe & Safyan, Anahit & Zezza, Alberto, 2025. "Are you s(ec)ure? assessing the sensitivity of land tenure security estimates to survey design choices," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    13. Abay, Kibrom A. & Ayalew, Hailemariam & Terfa, Zelalem & Karugia, Joseph & Breisinger, Clemens, 2025. "How good are livestock statistics in Africa? Can nudging and direct counting improve the quality of livestock asset data?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    14. Abay, Kibrom A. & Berhane, Guush & Hoddinott, John F. & Tafere, Kibrom, 2021. "Assessing response fatigue in phone surveys: Experimental evidence on dietary diversity in Ethiopia," IFPRI discussion papers 2017, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. Fitzpatrick, Anne, 2023. "Which price is right? A comparison of three standard approaches to measuring prices," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    16. Nobuyuki Nakamura & Aya Suzuki, 2024. "How altruism works during a pandemic: Examining the roles of financial support and degrees of individual altruism on international remittance," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(9), pages 3929-3965, September.
    17. Kalyani Raghunathan & Mai Mahmoud & Jessica Heckert & Gayathri Ramani & Greg Seymour, 2025. "Do Estimates of Women’s Control over Income and Decisionmaking Vary Across Nationally Representative Survey Programs?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 179(1), pages 95-122, August.
    18. repec:osf:osfxxx:j7vrm_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Abate, Gashaw T. & de Brauw, Alan & Hirvonen, Kalle & Wolle, Abdulazize, 2023. "Measuring consumption over the phone: Evidence from a survey experiment in urban Ethiopia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    20. Masselus, Lise & Fiala, Nathan, 2024. "Whom to ask? Testing respondent effects in household surveys," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    21. Fiala, Nathan & Masselus, Lise, 2022. "Whom to ask? Testing respondent effects in household surveys," Ruhr Economic Papers 935, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    22. Akramov, Kamiljon & Carrillo, Lucia & Kosec, Katrina, 2021. "Covid-19, Rural Poverty, and Women’s Role in Decision-Making: Evidence from Khatlon Province in Tajikistan," OSF Preprints j7vrm, Center for Open Science.

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    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
    • Q1 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture

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