The population of Myanmar is becoming increasingly vulnerable as a result of political instability, armed conflict, COVID-19, economic disruptions, price volatility, and weather. The collection of socio-economic data is essential for understanding the scope of these issues, their impact on Myanmar household welfare, and efficiently targeting scarce resources to address them. At the same time, given this unstable environment, the collection of face-to-face data is difficult. Therefore, Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS) was implemented as a nationally representative phone survey with the objective of collecting quarterly data on household and individual welfare indicators, including, poverty, food security, dietary quality, subjective wellbeing, and coping strategies.
You can view the full research note in English here.
Data collection and Sample Design of MHWS
The second round of MHWS data was collected between April 7th, 2022, and June 24th, 2022. The intention of MHWS was to create a representative survey at the national, state/region, and rural/urban level for the Myanmar population living in conventional housing. The number of households targeted in each state/region was proportional to its population size, with an oversampling in the two smallest states. An overview of the sampling design and the target sample sizes by State/Region can be found in MAPSA (2022).
MHWS was carried out in collaboration with Myanmar Survey Research (MSR), a private survey research company based in Myanmar with a database of 280,274 phone numbers of adults who consented to be contacted in phone surveys. To obtain a randomized nationally representative sample, a master database was constructed in which all phone numbers were stratified at the township level, so that the number of phone numbers in each township was proportional to the population size of each township (from the 2014 Census) (DoP, 2015). Households were selected randomly in each township. We chose to randomly sample at the township level to minimize oversampling of well-connected and/or wealthier townships. Finally, to ensure that women, famers, less educated, and more remote individuals were not under sampled, minimum targets by state were set for women (half of all respondents), rural location, farming livelihood, and education level (Table A.1).
Out of 330 townships, 20 do not appear in our sample, the same townships not enumerated in R1 (Figure 1, Table A.2). Out of the 20 townships not enumerated, six are in WA SAZ (Shan state), which we are not able to enumerate. The other six townships in Shan state that were not enumerated have ongoing intense conflict, making it difficult for the survey team to collect phone numbers from those areas. Finally, the six townships not enumerated in Kachin are very remote and home to very few people. In total, the townships not enumerated contain 1.6 percent of Myanmar’s population according to the 2019 Intercensal survey (ICS) data.
Figure 1. Interviews conducted in the second round of MHWS, by township
This blog post highlights one of the many recent surveys and research notes that MAPSA has conducted to assess the emerging constraints that key agricultural actors face and to mitigate the possible impacts of COVID-19 and recent disruptions on rural livelihoods and food security. Additional blog posts are available highlighting MAPSA’s research on the impact of disruptions on key actors in Myanmar’s agri-food system. Surveys are ongoing, and findings and recommendations will be periodically updated.
