KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study 2004

Due to the geographic concentration of African and Indian households, KIDS-unlike the PSLSD-limits its scope to African and Indian households. In the KwaZulu-Natal province, Africans represent 85 percent of the population and Indians represent 12 percent. Compared with their representation nationally, White and Coloured people are underrepresented in KwaZulu-Natal. Effectively, the numbers of White and Coloureds in the KwaZulu-Natal sample are too small, and too geographically concentrated in a few clusters, to permit meaningful inference. The KIDS study has thus been limited to the first two population groups.

PSLSD was a survey of households. However, households are a complicated object to define, particularly in longitudinal studies. To transform KIDS from a single-round household survey into a longitudinal household panel study required a redefinition of the sampling unit. In 1998, a decision was made to follow the core household members with the intention of capturing the major decision makers within the household.

A household member is a core person if he/she satisfied any of the following criteria:

• The self-declared head of household from the 1993 survey
• A spouse/partner of the self-declared head of household (from the 1993 survey)
• Lives in a three generation household and all of the following are true:
• Child of the self-declared household head, son/daughter-in-law of the household head, or niece/nephew of self-declared head
• At least 30 years old
• Have at least one child living in household
• Spouse/partner of person satisfying criterion.

Thus all heads of households and spouses of heads are automatically classified as core and, in some three-generation households, adult children are also included in this cateogry. In this way, we can see the 1993 survey as the baseline information for a random sample of dynasties. The efforts of the 1998 and 2004 surveyors to find the location of the 1993 core members can then be seen as a way to keep track of the 1993 dynasties.

In 2004, due to the aging of the core members and the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, the study was extended in a complementary way to track and interview the households of the children of the core or the next generation. These are sons and daughters of core members older than 18, who have established a "new" household since 1993 (labeled as "K"). By establishing a new household we mean that these children are now living away from their own parents with their own children, or with the children of their partner. Using the next generation to keep track of family "dynasties" provides a way of refreshing the panel and establishing a generational transition. In addition, due to our interest in the impact on children of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the 2004 wave followed foster children to their new households. This group is defined as children aged less than 18 years old of core and next generation household members who no longer live with their parents i.e. no longer live in core or next generation households (labeled as "N"). As described in Appendix A, different questionnaire modules were administered in the core, next generation, and foster child households.

As the goal of the 2004 wave of KIDS was to find and interview the households of the children of the core and the foster children in addition to those of the regular core members, we had three ways in which we could contact the 1993 dynasties.
In 1998, almost 84% of the 1993 dynasties were found as documented by May et al. (2000). From the 1132 dynasties interviewed in 1998, the 2004 wave found 841, yielding a response rate of 74%. Most of these dynasties were still composed of the original core members (760) however some of them were represented by the next generation of household members (K) or foster children (N).