Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Jan 31;13(1):e0191784.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191784. eCollection 2018.

Exploring unobserved household living conditions in multilevel choice modeling: An application to contraceptive adoption by Indian women

José G Dias  1 , Isabel Tiago de Oliveira  2
Affiliations

Exploring unobserved household living conditions in multilevel choice modeling: An application to contraceptive adoption by Indian women

José G Dias et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

This research analyzes the effect of the poverty-wealth dimension on contraceptive adoption by Indian women when no direct measures of income/expenditures are available to use as covariates. The index-Household Living Conditions (HLC)-is based on household assets and dwelling characteristics and is computed by an item response model simultaneously with the choice model in a new single-step approach. That is, the HLC indicator is treated as a latent covariate measured by a set of items, it depends on a set of concomitant variables, and explains contraceptive choices in a probit regression. Additionally, the model accounts for complex survey design and sample weights in a multilevel framework. Regarding our case study on contraceptive adoption by Indian women, results show that women with better household living conditions tend to adopt contraception more often than their counterparts. This effect is significant after controlling other factors such as education, caste, and religion. The external validation of the indicator shows that it can also be used at aggregate levels of analysis (e.g., county or state) whenever no other indicators of household living conditions are available.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The multilevel choice model with a latent covariate.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Distribution of the estimated random effects grouped by state.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Distribution of Household Living Conditions (HLC) by Indian state.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Relation between NSDPpc and Household Living Conditions (HLC) for Indian states (see Table 4 for the meaning of acronyms of Indian states).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kaiser BN, Hruschka D, Hadley C. Measuring material wealth in low-income settings: A conceptual and how-to guide. Am J Hum Biol. 2017; 29:e22987. - PubMed
    1. Deaton A and Grosh M. Consumption In Grosh M, Glewwe P (Eds). Designing Household Survey Questionnaires for Developing Countries: Lessons from 15 Years of the Living Standards Measurement Study. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2000, pp. 91–133.
    1. O’Donnell O, van Doorslaer E, Wagstaff A, Lindelow M. Analyzing Health Equity Using Household Survey Data A Guide to Techniques and Their Implementation, Washington: The World Bank; 2008.
    1. Deaton A. The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy. Washington DC: IBRD/The World Bank; 1997.
    1. Montgomery MR, Gragnolati M, Burke KA, Paredes E. Measuring living standards with proxy variables. Demography. 2000; 37(2):155–174. - PubMed

Publication types