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Participatory wealth ranking

"Hearing the voices of the poor": assigning poverty lines on the basis of local perceptions of poverty; a quantitative analysis of qualitative data from participatory wealth ranking in rural South Africa

Using participatory wealth ranking to define poverty lines in the Limpopo Province, South Africa

Authors: J.R. Hargreaves
Publisher: Q-Squared: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches in Poverty Analysis, 2005

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The authors of this paper argue that participatory wealth ranking (PWR) may be a useful tool to generate a thorough appraisal of poverty on a scale suitable for the generation of statistics that can be used to inform policy. The specific objectives of the study were:

  • to generate a quantitative household wealth index that was directly linked to qualitative statements about well-being collected during participatory wealth ranking
  • to use participants’ descriptions of what constituted poverty in their setting to apply poverty lines to the index
  • to discuss the utility of this approach compared to poverty appraisals generated using more established data collection and analysis techniques.

The authors applied a mixed-methods approach to PWR to identify the number of poor households in eight villages of of Limpopo Province, South Africa and describe how poor they are. Descriptions from PWR identified households as "very poor", "poor, but a bit better off", or "doing OK". The authors found that of 9671 households, 3113 (32.2 percent) could be considered "very poor" or "poor". A group of 24.4 percent of households were categorised as "very poor" by local PWR participants. A further 7.8 percent of households were classified as "poor" by the authors of this paper.

From this study, the authors make two main conclusions:

  • the villages in the study area, located in the Tubatse municipality of South Africa’s Limpopo Province, are suffering severe, endemic poverty in urgent need of redress
  • the authors' analysis of PWR data has generated a rich appraisal of the prevalence and depth of poverty in this region. The authors suggest that such data could be used or refined for use by policy makers.