3.2.
Mixed methods data analysis
Initial panel data analysis The first step was a re-examination of a recent analysis on poverty dynamics (McCullough and Diwakar, 2018) to understand, for the population at large, what factors are associated with changes in wellbeing over time. This study analyses the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) – L'Enquête nationale sur les conditions de vie des ménages et de l'agriculture (ECVM/A), a nationally representative longitudinal survey of 3,436 households interviewed in 2011 and 2014 in rural and urban areas of Niger. Household-level poverty trajectories were constructed from the panel data (Box 1). Throughout the analysis, we eliminated households whose per capita expenditure was within 5% above or below the poverty line to limit measurement error (Baulch, 2016). Alongside the wider literature on poverty and livelihoods in Niger and a series of poverty dynamics studies in sub-Saharan Africa (for a synthesis see Diwakar and Shepherd, 2018), this provided an initial understanding of factors associated with descents into and escapes from poverty as well as correlates of chronic poverty. The next step was an initial analysis of the ECVM/A, prior to the fieldwork. This was undertaken with two aims in mind: (1) to guide site selection sub-nationally, given the zone-level poverty trajectories uncovered by the panel data; and (2) to present descriptive and initial regression analysis findings to raise specific issues that could be nuanced or interrogated through the subsequent qualitative fieldwork. Using the ECVM/A, we descriptively explored key variables around wellbeing, livelihoods, training and migration, with a focus on exploring changes over time and differences between young adults and other adult populations. In addition to this descriptive assessment, we undertook regression-based analysis comprising multinomial logistic regressions at the household level to investigate drivers of different poverty trajectories across all households, and also restricted to the subset of youth-headed
households.
The
model
relied
on
baseline
values
of
household
(characteristics of the head, assets, livelihoods) and area/regional regressors, and shocks from the latest survey wave. In all regressions, average marginal effects are computed.
Analysis of qualitative multi-level data The write up of the notes or findings from interviews is not a synthesis of findings but rather a full account, close to a transcription. In the summary and conclusion, the researcher involved in the interview reports on observations, analyses contradictions, incomplete accounts (e.g., if they had hidden assets or didn’t find out how they obtained capita to start a business which is difficult for the chronically poor, or issues of magnitude, e.g days unemployed or size of herds). When iterated with key family interviews, the interviewer might
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