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| Asset Index Construction× | Demographic and Health Survey Analysis× | |
|---|---|---|
| Field | Development Studies | Development Studies |
| Family | Process / pipeline | Process / pipeline |
| Year of origin≠ | 2001 | 1984 |
| Originator≠ | Deon Filmer & Lant Pritchett | USAID / The DHS Program (ICF) |
| Type≠ | Composite socioeconomic-status proxy index | Nationally representative population and health survey |
| Seminal source≠ | Filmer, D., & Pritchett, L. H. (2001). Estimating Wealth Effects without Expenditure Data—or Tears: An Application to Educational Enrollments in States of India. Demography, 38(1), 115-132. DOI ↗ | Croft, T. N., Marshall, A. M. J., Allen, C. K., et al. (2018). Guide to DHS Statistics: DHS-7. Rockville, MD: ICF, The DHS Program. link ↗ |
| Aliases | Wealth Index, Asset Index, PCA Wealth Index, Socioeconomic Status Index | DHS, Demographic and Health Survey, DHS Program survey, Standard DHS |
| Related | 4 | 4 |
| Summary≠ | Asset index construction builds a proxy for household wealth or socioeconomic status from observable possessions — durable goods, housing quality, and access to utilities — when reliable income or consumption data are unavailable. The dominant approach, popularized by Deon Filmer and Lant Pritchett in 2001, applies principal component analysis (PCA) to a set of asset variables and uses the first principal component as a set of weights, producing a single wealth score for each household. The method underlies the wealth quintiles reported in Demographic and Health Surveys and many other household surveys across low- and middle-income countries. | The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are nationally representative household surveys that provide standardised, internationally comparable data on population, health, and nutrition in low- and middle-income countries. Funded primarily by USAID and implemented through The DHS Program, they use model questionnaires, a complex multi-stage sample design, and a standardised wealth index to produce indicators of fertility, child and maternal mortality, family planning, child nutrition, and disease prevalence that drive health policy and programme monitoring worldwide. |
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