World Development Vol. 30, No. 3, pp.

511–522, 2002
Ó 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
Printed in Great Britain
www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev 0305-750X/02/$ - see front matter
PII: S0305-750X(01)00114-0

Combining Quantitative and Qualitative

Approaches in Poverty Analysis
HOWARD WHITE *
Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK
Summary. — Economics is commonly associated with the use of quantitative methods, and because
of this, supposedly, the discipline is more ‘‘rigorous’’ than other social sciences, which are in turn
associated with the application of qualitative methods, presumed to be less rigorous. This paper
challenges these assumptions and argues that the more serious distinction, which applies both to
quantitative and to qualitative research, is between data analysis and data mining. Opposing the
opposition of quantitative and qualitative analyses, the paper shows how a productive synergy may
be established both between methods, and between disciplines, using examples from studies of
labor in rural Africa, of the relationships of household size and poverty, and of child
survival. Ó 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

Key words — methods, poverty, statistics, econometrics

1. INTRODUCTION number of cases in which areas of research have

This set of papers explores the meaning,
benefits and ramifications of multidisciplina-
rity. One of the ‘‘oppositions’’ between eco-
nomics and other social sciences is that between
quantitative and qualitative approaches (Har-
riss, 2002). These oppositions are, to an extent,
false dichotomies. Quantitative versus qualita-
tive is a false dichotomy for two reasons. First,
noneconomic social sciences can and do utilize
quantitative techniques (and economists quali-
tative ones). Second, more important than the
distinction between quantitative and qualita-
tive, is that between data analysis and data
mining. The role of research, and perhaps even
more so policy analysis, is to establish patterns
in the data, rather than try to force them into a
preconceived view of the world. These points
are discussed in Section 2.
The distinction between quantitative and
qualitative is nonetheless well entrenched. In
practice, economics is identified with quantita-
tive approaches in contrast to the qualitative
approach of the ‘‘softer’’ social sciences. My
argument is that these distinctions need to be
broken down because of the complementarity
between the different approaches. 1 In some
cases one can argue that there is synergy, and
the contribution of a discipline is enhanced
(able to move forward) because of insights from
another discipline. Harriss (2002) identifies a
511
been opened up in economics because of dif-
ferent ways of looking at things introduced
from other disciplines. He demonstrates that
many notable contributors to economics stand
out because of their ability (and willingness) to
draw on other disciplines. This paper takes the
argument down to the level of a number of
specific cases all falling within the realm of
‘‘poverty analysis.’’ Even without aspiring to a
Nobel prize, economists can in their day-to-day
work learn much from drawing on other dis-
ciplines. Section 3 illustrates this point with
reference to household models, in particular the
issues of labor exchange in rural Africa and
household economies of scale.
There is, of course, a two-way flow, with
other disciplines benefiting from the insights
economics can bring. Section 4 discusses one
area in which there has been, and continues to
* This paper draws on unpublished work prepared with
Nicola Desmond (LSHTM) and Sharada Srinivasan
(ISS) (White, Srinivasan, & Desmond, 2001). Additional
work for the paper has been supported by DFID as a
background paper for a presentation to the Global
Development Network on May 14, 2001. Helpful com-
ments have been received on earlier drafts from Sam
Jackson, John Harriss, Charles Clift, Jan Kmenta and
Neil McCulloch. The usual disclaimer applies. Final
revision accepted: 8 October 2001.
512 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
be, a particularly fruitful interaction between
economics and other disciplines, namely the
analysis of child survival. Gender is a crucial
aspect of such analyses, so that the example is a
specific case of the more general point argued
by Jackson (2002) that feminist economics
demonstrates the application of economic
techniques to an area previously analyzed from
a sociological perspective. Section 5 concludes.
2. THE USE AND ABUSE OF
TECHNIQUES
There is a perception among economists that
quantitative techniques provide more ‘‘rigor’’
than qualitative techniques. Hence it is often
felt that economics, with its more rigorous
footing, is a sounder basis from which to for-
mulate policy advice. 2 Three observations may
be made with respect to such an attitude. First,
the use of quantitative techniques is common in
several other disciplines, with the US social
science tradition utilizing these to a greater
extent than that in Europe. Second, the real
basis for ‘‘rigor’’ is the proper application of
techniques. Badly or misleadingly applied, both
quantitative and qualitative techniques give
bad or misleading conclusions. Finally, differ-
ent techniques are appropriate to different set-
tings. Later sections of this paper elaborate this
last point, showing how combining quantitative
and qualitative work can strengthen both. The
discussion turns now to the first two points.
Economics is not the only social science to
rely on math, modeling and statistical data
analysis. Demography has a strong mathemat-
ical tradition, and is by its very nature rooted in
analysis of quantitative data. Yet demogra-
phers routinely combine both quantitative and
qualitative methods, and the discipline has not
seen the convergence toward a stylistic hege-
mony which is evident from mainstream eco-
nomic journals. Political scientists are also no
strangers to either math or statistics, and the
Table 1. Use of mathematical and statistical analysis in political science and sociology
American Journal of Political Science
Mathematical modeling
Statistical analysis: regression or similar
Statistical analysis: other
Both modeling and statistical analysis
Neither
Total
Source: author’s examination of named journals.
US profession has, in fact, seen something of a
convergence similar to that already witnessed in
economics (Harriss, 2002). A review of the two
most recent issues of the American Journal of
Political Science shows that just over one-third
of the papers (10 out of 29) use mathematical
modeling, most of a sort similar to that found
in the Economic Journal or the American Eco-
nomic Review (Table 1). Eighty percent of the
papers present regression results. While some of
these are ordinary least squares, logistic re-
gression is the most commonly applied tech-
nique and one paper uses vector auto
regressions (VARs). One of the papers is pri-
marily concerned with appropriate statistical
techniques (Zorn, 2001). Sociologists are apt to
draw on data analysis as and when it is ap-
propriate for their purpose, as in Durkheim’s
classic study of suicide first published in 1897.
Again, in the United States a tradition has
grown up which routinely utilizes relatively
sophisticated quantitative techniques. A review
of two leading US sociology journals in the
1960s reported that over 90% of the papers
reported results from quantitative surveys
(Brenner, 1981, cited in Silverman, 1985). In-
spection of the two most recent issues of the
American Journal of Sociology found that two-
thirds of the papers use regression-based sta-
tistical analysis or similar ones (e.g., factor
analysis). Recent issues of the annual publica-
tion of the American Sociological Association,
Sociological Methodology, largely contain pa-
pers on advanced statistical techniques (e.g.,
Agresti, Booth, & Hubert, 2000).
Turning to the second point, both quantita-
tive and qualitative approaches are about tak-
ing observations of the world (data) and
presenting them within a framework (a model).
The important point is the relationship between
the data and the model, which comes first, and
which has the upper hand in this relationship.
In econometrics there is a distinction between
data analysis and data mining. Although both
data analyst and data miner do similar things—
American Journal of Sociology
5 0
18 4
0 2
5 4
1 2
29 12
 COMBINING QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE
running many regressions and looking at di-
agnostic tests—their objectives are very differ-
ent. 3 The data analyst is looking for the
interpretation most consistent with the data,
i.e., letting the data tell the story. The data
miner knows what she is looking for and keeps
digging until she finds it. Then she stops and
that is the story she tells. Data miners are
equally at home using either quantitative or
qualitative data.
The large qualitative analysis undertaken by
the World Bank, the Voices of the Poor—
published in three volumes: Crying Out for
Change (Narayan, Chambers, Shah, & Petesch,
2000a), Can Anyone Hear Us? (Narayan, Pa-
tel, Schafft, Rademacher, & Koch-Schullem,
2000b) and From Many Lands (Narayan &
Petesch, 2000)—has come under criticism for
its lack of rigor with respect to sampling and
presentation of the results. Regarding the latter
it is argued that in a mountain of transcripts it
is, of course, possible to find a quote from a
‘‘poor person’’ to fit the argument being made.
This is an accusation of data mining. But this is
hardly something of which economics is inno-
cent. Indeed, economics is predisposed toward
a theory-driven approach in which the model is
first derived and then data fitted to that model.
There is a saying that ‘‘if you torture the data
long enough [they] will confess.’’ 4 Certainly
any moderately competent econometrician,
given enough variables, should be able to
produce the desired sign and significance on
most variables of interest.
In the absence of the data set and replication
of the results, it is impossible to know how
badly the data have been treated. It is not part
of the refereeing process for economics journals
to replicate the econometrics. Indeed, authors
are not generally required to submit the data
set to make this possible. Nor does economics
appear to attach the same importance to rep-
lication as do the natural sciences. 5 In one
case, data were obtained which had been used
for a paper in the Journal of Development
Economics and three researchers were, inde-
pendently, unable to replicate the results. Even
where data are available most readers of course
take statements on trust. For example, the
World Bank report Adjustment in Africa pub-
lished the data it had used to show the benefi-
cial impact of various policy changes on
growth. Mosley, Subasat, and Weeks (1995)
published a critique in World Development
which included the claim that they could not
replicate the results and the difference between
513
their results and those of the World Bank was
‘‘a mystery’’ (p. 1466). This claim is simply
untrue. The results are replicable, as five min-
utes with a spreadsheet would show.
In such a climate, suspicions of data mining
can always arise. The World Bank’s work on
aid effectiveness, notably the paper of Burnside
and Dollar (2000), has been criticized by many
academic researchers on these grounds. For
some time the Burnside and Dollar data set was
not made publicly available and researchers
were unable to replicate the results using what
ought to have been at least very similar data.
Once the data became available the results were
indeed replicated but they remained unrobust.
Quite minor changes in model specification
could change the results in such a way as to
make them inconsistent with the arguments
advanced by Burnside and Dollar and the
World Bank’s Assessing Aid report. 6
Where does this discussion leave us with re-
spect to qualitative data? Of course, qualitative
data can be mined for ‘‘the right result,’’ but so
can quantitative data. There are well-estab-
lished techniques for the scientific analysis of
qualitative data, for example, content analysis
of different media—and textbooks telling the
budding social scientist how to go about it (e.g.,
Gilbert, 1993; Silverman, 1985, 1993). Com-
puter programs, such as QSR-Nudist, mean
that ever larger data sets can be analyzed in
such ways. The real question here is one of
professional respect, trust and integrity. Just as
economists quite readily take as ‘‘right’’ the
regression results they find in published papers,
they should accord the same professional re-
spect to presentations of qualitative material.
Members of all disciplines should be on the
look out for shady practices which distort
patterns in the data. 7 These problems are by
no means unique to users of qualitative data.
3. CREATING SYNERGY BETWEEN
QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE
APPROACHES
Two examples are discussed here in which the
combination of quantitative and qualitative
techniques can enrich one another. I go so far
as to say there is a synergy between them. That
is, using the approaches together yields more
than the sum of the two approaches used in-
dependently. The first example discusses the
lack of economic analysis of labor exchange in
rural Africa and points to the rich anthropo-
514 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
logical literature as a basis for developing
household models. The second point follows on
from the first. This is how the problem of
household economies of scale in consumption
can be resolved by realizing that the household
is the unit of production and the life cycle
which follows from this.
8
(a) Labor exchange in rural Africa
There is a view among many economists that
labor markets in rural Africa are very thin. A
commonly cited statement of this position is
that of Binswanger, McIntire, and Udry (1989);
writing of the Sahel they say that ‘‘there is al-
most no hiring or exchange of labour among
resident farmers during the peak labour sea-
son’’ (p. 125). 9 This view has been generalized
for sub-Saharan Africa by Sahn and Sarris
(1994), who cite the view of Binswanger et al.
(1989) that rural Africa is typified by underde-
veloped land and labor markets. They argue
that labor and credit markets have only
emerged in response to population growth and
external trade opportunities and that there was
little exchange of these factors before that.
Hence, although their paper is titled ‘‘The
evolution of states, markets, and civil institu-
tions in rural Africa,’’ and although they adopt
a broad definition of institutions to encompass
social relations, they do not touch upon any of
the diverse forms of labor exchange which
characterize rural Africa.
Kevane (1994) begins his paper analyzing
labor exchange in Sudan with the quote from
Binswanger et al. given above. He goes on to
show that, to the contrary, labor exchange is
widespread. Some of this is in return for cash
Table 2. Forms of labor exchange in rural Africa
‘‘Pure’’ labor market transactions
Interlocking markets including labor exchange
Nonmarket-based labor exchange
Adjusting family size
payment, over which bargaining can occur, but
there are many other forms of exchange rooted
to varying degrees in social institutions. One
example, which can be found over much of the
continent, is of work parties or groups—com-
monly known as ‘‘beer parties’’ (or tea in
Muslim areas). The owner of the land provides
food and drink in return for the day’s work. It
is prestigious to be able to arrange labor in this
way, and Kevane documents that older men
will make their sons attend as part of the means
of ensuring attendance when they organize a
similar event.
The point made by Kevane can be general-
ized with evidence from throughout rural Af-
rica. Labor exchange takes place when any
work is performed outside of the household.
Conversely, there is an exchange when any
household production is performed by non-
household members. There are a wide range of
market and nonmarket transactions through
which labor exchange operates, which are
summarized in Table 2.
Economists model rural households as hav-
ing a given labor supply (household size) and
then deciding whether to hire labor in or out.
But, as the last row of Table 2 shows, house-
hold size is endogenous. Family size can be
deliberately enlarged to increase labor supply;
Cheater (1984) (cited in den Ouden, 1995) calls
this ‘‘the traditional idiom of accumulation.’’
There are four main channels for adjusting
family size. First, as economists have recog-
nized, reproduction is an economic decision. If
complementary assets are needed in production
then we would expect better-off households
to have more children (though this is just
one determinant of the number of children).
Long-term labor contracts
Short-term (including daily) labor contracts
Sharecropping
Share contracts for other inputs
Lending and borrowing children
Pawnship and slavery
Tributary labor
Generalized reciprocity
Balanced reciprocity
Work parties
Additional wives
Additional children
‘‘Adopting’’ dependent subhousehold
Borrowing children, pawnship and slavery
 COMBINING QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE
Second, polygamy is widespread in much of
Africa. It is the better off who are likely to have
more wives. This can be explained partly by
fact the it is socially and personally desirable to
have more wives. But it also provides addi-
tional household labor, which is particularly
required by the better off who have the assets to
engage in farming on a larger scale. Third,
households can gain or lose members depend-
ing on their prosperity. Unsuccessful house-
holds ‘‘disappear’’ as their members die or are
dispersed among more successful relatives.
Successful households ‘‘adopt’’ whole depen-
dent subhouseholds. Relatives within a house-
hold typically have a subordinate status
(reflected in worse social indicators) 10 and are
seen as a source of labor; in the words of a
Bemba man (Zambia) ‘‘no one would know the
difference between a slave and a poor relative’’
(quoted in Iliffe, 1987, p. 57). Finally, house-
hold size has historically been increased
through owning slaves. While this practice is
diminished, though not eliminated, pawnship
continues. Pawning is the exchange of a
household member, often a female child, in
return for credit; i.e., a debt bondage relation-
ship (Falola & Lovejoy, 1994). The practice
remains particularly common in West Africa,
with children being sold from countries such as
Benin and Togo to oil-rich Gabon and Nigeria
(Anti-slavery International). 11 Where there is
little likelihood of repayment pawnship is little
different from sale of the child. A linked prac-
tice is the lending and borrowing of children—
this serves the interests of both the poor family,
who are relieved of the responsibility of cloth-
ing and feeding the child (so the transaction
interlocks goods and labor markets), and the
better-off household, which acquires labor.
There is also some social obligation from the
better-off household to the poorer as a result of
this transaction (Grandin, 1989).
Beyond the household a variety of labor
relationships may be found. Hill’s review of
these in West Africa identifies four common
forms: (i) abusa, which is something akin to
sharecropping though the landowner or a rel-
ative supervises the work, (ii) wage labor,
usually by younger men (there is stigma at-
tached to older men working for wages, and if
they do so it is usually away from their vil-
lage), (iii) work groups and (iv) farm servants
on annual contracts (Hill, 1986). Hill points to
strong similarities between these arrangements
and those found in India. Other forms of in-
terlocking markets are also to be found, e.g.,
515
in the use of agricultural implements. But
unlike in the case of Asia, for which there is a
rich economic literature, analysis of these is-
sues is virtually absent in Africa. Indeed,
economic analysis of African rural households
is slight. What this discussion makes clear is
that the application of household models in
the African context should be rooted in the
specific social context. This point is a specific
example of that made by Harriss (2002) that
economic models need to be confronted by
social reality.
(b) Household economies of scale
It was argued above that household size in-
creases to fulfill the labor requirements of suc-
cessful households. Much anthropological
writing on Africa is unambiguous in the view
that larger families are better off; for example
‘‘Africans measured wealth and power in men
rather than acres; those who exercised power
were man-owners rather than landowners’’
(Hopkins, 1973, p. 26) and in Benin (among the
Adja)
the alo-su am
e dji [are] powerful men who control
many people and are respected and feared. They have
many wives, children and dependants in their com-
pounds . . . [and] many others . . . come to them for ad-
vice and support’’ (den Ouden, 1995, p. 3).
Finally, it is the rich man who can afford
more wives:
the average number of wives is closely related to the
husband’s age and wealth . . . In Dorayi . . . the overall
ratio of wives to husbands was 1.4, the corresponding
ratio for the richest men was 2.1’’ (Hill, 1975, p. 119).
But these findings are at odds with the
‘‘stylized fact’’ from quantitative poverty pro-
files that larger households are poorer. How
can we explain this discrepancy between
quantitative and qualitative evidence?
Four explanations may be given for this
‘‘paradox.’’ First, the quantitative data may be
wrong. They may fail to adjust for either or
both household size and composition. 12 Sec-
ond, mean consumption does not tell us about
intrahousehold allocation. Dependent house-
hold members have subordinate status and so
may well have low levels of consumption. Av-
erage household consumption may therefore be
little different from, or even lower than, the
average while the household head enjoys a
higher level of consumption. Third, the house-
516 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
hold life cycle matters for household well-being.
Large families at certain stages of this cycle
may be expected to be well off, but others may
not. Finally, there may be no paradox. Con-
sumption is not the thing that is valued; rather
it is the prestige that follows from having large
agricultural holdings, many cattle, and the
large family that goes with that. The first and
third of these possibilities require further ex-
planation.
Quantitative analysis of the link between
household size and poverty is complicated by
the need to make two adjustments. The first
adjustment is to convert household size to adult
equivalents to allow for the lower consumption
requirements of children. 13 This adjustment is
commonly, though not always, made. The
second adjustment, far less commonly made, is
to allow for economies of scale in household
consumption, that is, the fact that two can live
more cheaply together than apart by virtue of
‘‘public goods’’ within the household. For ex-
ample, charges for utilities may be the same for
a household of two as for that of one, and
certainly do not rise proportionately as house-
hold size increases. Two problems arise if
economies of scale are not properly accounted
for: systematic underestimation or overestima-
tion of poverty, misleading poverty correlates
with respect to household size. Both of these
have important policy implications, so it would
be useful to know what light can be shed on
them by anthropological analysis.
At least for rural households the key to this
puzzle is likely to lie in the fact that the
household is the unit of production as well as
consumption. Anthropologists have been
critical of economists’ ready application of
the concept of ‘‘the household’’ to a wide
range of social settings (Hill, 1986). Of par-
ticular importance for our purposes here is
that household size is chosen as part of the
production strategy. As discussed above, the
rich household head with control over ample
resources will find ways to increase family
size to acquire labor. This fact is in contrast
to the household models of economists which
assume a household with a given endowment
of labor (and sometimes land) to analyze if
households are net suppliers or demanders of
labor.
Recognizing the household as the unit of
production also points to the importance of the
household life cycle. The concept of the life
cycle has been applied in Western economics to
theories of consumption (life cycle theory is
most closely associated with the name of Mo-
digliani, e.g., Ando & Modigliani, 1963). At
their simplest the models show expenditure to
be based on expected lifetime earnings so that
households are net savers in their working years
(except perhaps when starting out) and net
borrowers in retirement. The story can be made
more realistic by taking into account expendi-
tures related to property acquisition and child
rearing. 14 The matter is more complicated
when the household is also involved in pro-
duction. The most prosperous household will
be that with many healthy children of working
age. That with a few young children, or an
older couple with no children, will be worse off,
though the latter may well be absorbed into
another household. There is clearly scope to
adapt modern theories of consumption to
tropical settings, but only by taking into ac-
count the prevailing institutional setting. An-
thropological analysis of this social context
sheds light on how household size and com-
position affect household welfare. 15 Although
present in some economic thinking (for exam-
ple, the work of Chayanov) recent household
models for developing countries do not capture
these aspects.
(c) Data collection
The above is a broad outline of research is-
sues which may be tackled by economics, but
informed by information on institutional ar-
rangements provided by sociology. Moving
beyond modeling to data analysis requires that
the appropriate data be available. The current
form of income and expenditure surveys is ill
adapted to the realities of rural life in much of
Africa. Termine (2001) reviews the Zambia
Living Conditions Monitoring Survey as a basis
for analyzing rural labor markets. The small
labor market module asks questions such as
whether the person has paid annual leave or is
in a superannuation scheme. Such questions
are peculiarly inappropriate to a rural laborer,
and a waste of an opportunity to collect labor
market data. The questionnaire does not allow
identification of payment in kind for particular
activities, and would miss activities such as
beer parties (which are an important feature
of Zambian agricultural production, see
Vaughan, 1998). Clearly there is a need for
data collection, as well as economic theory, to
be informed by insights from anthropological
analysis.
 COMBINING QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE
4. ANALYZING CHILD SURVIVAL
Infant and child mortality rates differ greatly
around the world and even within countries. 16
The World Fertility Survey (WFS) in the 1970s
and Demographic Health Survey (DHS) since
the 1980s have collected high-quality data on
infant and child health at the household and
individual level. These data have been subject
to statistical analysis. Indeed the concept of
child survival, being a probability, is an inher-
ently statistical concept and, as discussed be-
low, it is statistical analysis which is needed to
uncover overall patterns in the data. But there
is a potential interaction between quantitative
and qualitative methods. Indeed Croll (2000)
argues that ‘‘inter-disciplinarity approach [is]
required to examine this rising discrimination’’
behind excess female mortality in Asia (p. xiv).
Statistical analysis of the determinants of
infant and child mortality is commonly based
on logistic regressions in which the dependent
variable is zero for children who, for example,
survive their first year and one for those who do
not. 17 The explanatory variable can be used to
determine how various factors, such as
mother’s education, affect the probability of
premature death. These models often include
dummy variables for either the ethnic group of
the household head or region of residence,
where the latter may sometimes be a proxy for
the former. Where the coefficients on these
dummies are significant, as they often are, then
the results say that, having taken into account
other factors such as education levels, eco-
nomic well-being and access to health services,
children from some ethnic backgrounds are
more likely to die than those from others. The
statistical analysis is unable to get us further
than that. But anthropological studies can yield
considerable insights into the reasons behind
mortality differentials between population
groups.
Table 3. Missing women in Asia
Actual
sex ratio
China 1990 1.066
India 1991 1.077
Pakistan 1981 1.105
Bangladesh 1981 1.064
Nepal 1981 1.050
West Asia 1985 1.060
Egypt 1986 1.947
Source: Croll (2000, p. 2).
517
Three different factors may be identified be-
hind differential mortality rates. First is the
excess mortality of female children in Asian
countries as a result of relative neglect or out-
right murder. Second are cases of apparent
neglect or indifference in which some children
are allowed to die. Finally, local health and
childcare practices may be detrimental.
(a) Excess female mortality in Asia
Excess female mortality was publicized by
Sen (1990) in his paper ‘‘More than a million
women are missing.’’ This calculation follows
from an analysis of Asian sex ratios with norms
elsewhere. More sophisticated versions of the
calculation come to somewhat lower figures,
but confirm the idea of missing women (Table
3). Such calculations are best based on census
data, and show very clearly how quantitative
data can open up areas for qualitative enquiry.
Croll (2000) combines demographic and
ethnographic approaches to the analysis of ex-
cess female mortality in Asian countries, fo-
cusing on India and China. She demonstrates
that the phenomenon has increased over time
rather improved with development. 18 Harriss-
White (2001) reports that the male–female ratio
rises with income, i.e., excess mortality is more
severe at higher income levels, except for the
very top of the range. What has usually been
called ‘‘son preference’’ Croll suggests should
be called ‘‘daughter discrimination’’—and
supports this view with a wide range of demo-
graphic evidence, which uncovers a range of
factors which depend on the economic status of
women (the amount of dowry, their productive
opportunities, etc.). Since it is women’s eco-
nomic potential which determines decisions of
preferred sex of children, these arguments can
be incorporated into economic models of the
household, as has been done by Agnihotri
(2000) (cited by Harriss-White, 2001).
Expected Percentage No. missing
sex ratio missing women (millions)
1.010 5.3 29.1
1.020 5.6 22.8
1.025 7.8 3.1
1.025 3.8 1.6
1.025 2.4 0.2
1.030 3.0 1.7
1.020 2.6 0.6
518 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
The paper of Venkatramani (1992) on the
Kallars in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu put
this in a human perspective:
I killed my child to save it from the lifelong ignominy
of being the daughter of a poor family that cannot af-
ford to pay a decent dowry . . . But all the same, it was
extremely difficult to steel myself for the act. A mother
who has borne a child cannot bear to see it suffer even
for a little while, let alone bring herself to kill it. But I
had to do it, because my husband and I concluded
that it was better to let our child suffer an hour or
two than suffer throughout life (p. 127).
(b) Neglect as triage
Elsewhere, children may be discriminated
against as a response to their low survival
prospects. Scheper-Hughes (1992) documents
this phenomenon in the case of a poor urban
community in Brazil where infant mortality
rates probably range between three and five
hundred per 1,000. 19 Parents seem indifferent
to these deaths. Scheper-Hughes (1992) argues
that parents’ response is their way of coping
with the inevitable. Mothers are well aware of
the causes of death—mostly diarrhea related to
malnutrition—which is more than appears in
official death certificates, which generally give
‘‘stopped breathing’’ or ‘‘heart failure’’ as the
cause of death. But parents do exercise some
discrimination, preferring stronger children to
weaker.
Indifference may be at the level of the com-
munity—as in the case of the Chagga in Tan-
zania. The majority dismiss the very poor as
‘‘these people’’ (hawa watu), responsible for
their own plight—they drink too much, are
ignorant, do not plan ahead, etc. (Howard &
Millard, 1997). These attitudes mean that a
poor individual cannot get a loan, the attempt
of one of the authors to help the creation of a
woodworking co-operative was frustrated by
lack of support from both church and govern-
ment, and the children of the poor are allowed
to die the slow death of malnutrition living next
to, or even in the same compound as, wealthier
relatives.
Evidence from other countries also provides
examples of birth order, gender and clan affil-
iation affecting infant mortality and health
status. The decision to favor one child over
another can be made on the basis of matrilineal
or patrilineal affiliation (among the Chagga the
first boy and girl belong to the paternal family
while the second born are aligned to the ma-
ternal one; Howard, 1994; Howard & Millard,
1997). Howard (1994) describes how the rela-
tionship between birth order and traditional
land tenure systems can have consequences for
child health and survival. As the shortage of
land is becoming increasingly acute, middle
sons and daughters lose out on any inheritance.
So when times are hard parents must make a
difficult choice between who to favor and who
to abandon. 20
(c) Mortality from medical and dietary beliefs
Medical and dietary beliefs may decrease or
increase the probability of survival. Nutritional
status is important for infant and child survival.
Poor nutrition cannot always be wholly at-
tributed to lack of food. Periodic and long-term
food taboos can have an important effect on
infant and maternal mortality. Aunger (1992)
uses data on actual consumption behavior to
establish the consequences of food avoidance
beliefs on horticulturalists and foragers living
in the Ituri forest of northeastern Zaire. Here, a
variety of different ethnic groups practice two
different subsistence strategies. Food avoid-
ances mostly involve whole animals rather than
body parts and stem from culturally sanctioned
taboos, either lifelong or specific to periods of
life such as the first menses, pregnancy or
childbirth. Violation of such taboos is used to
explain many types of illness. Food taboos in
the area are often also linked to social control
mechanisms such as witchcraft, fear of which
reinforces and culturally sanctions such taboos.
Aunger finds that the average proportion of
dietary calories lost through taboo in the Ituri
is quite small in this case but that the highest
levels of dietary restriction occur during the
times when people need greatest sustenance,
such as gestation and lactation and the physi-
ological growth periods of children.
Spielmann (1989) examines the relationship
between food intake and fertility and infant
mortality among hunter-gatherer societies and
agriculturalists both archaeologically and using
evidence from such societies today. She argues
that women are restricted either periodically or
indefinitely in access to critical nutrients due to
differential access to shared meats (loss of
protein and fat) and food taboos. Such poor
maternal nutritional health leads to higher in-
fant mortality and food taboos help to magnify
the effects of ‘‘naturally occurring’’ nutrient
deficiencies. Examples of tabooed foods among
 COMBINING QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE
Table 4. Food taboos in selected societies
Group Pregnancy Lactation
Walbiri  
Andamanese  
Koyukon  
Mbuti  Unspecified personal and band-level food taboos
Navajo  Meat, potatoes, beans and salt
Source: Spielmann (1989).
certain groups during pregnancy and lactation
are outlined in Table 4.
Medical practices may also be detrimental to
health (as has been the case in developed
countries in the West, and some would argue is
still the case, especially with respect to mental
health). Azevedo, Gwendolyn, and Lantum
(1991) found belief in witchcraft, sorcery and
God to be commonly perceived causes of infant
death and disease in Cameroon. Irrespective of
age, religion and ethnic origin, belief in natural
causation of disease is almost nonexistent. Be-
lief that certain diseases such as tuberculosis,
yellow fever, epilepsy and leprosy could only be
cured by a traditional healer, along with the
large percentage of respondents in the study
who stated that a disease caused by a sorcerer
could only be cured by a traditional healer, has
meant that visits to health centers are relatively
low in the region studied (East Province).
Further examples from Cameroon are among
the Baya, who cut the umbilical cord with the
peel of sugar cane, treat a human bite with
chicken excrement, use dirt on fresh wounds to
cure and prevent scars, make the child drink the
same water in which he has just bathed in order
to speed his growth, and have elders spit in the
mouth of infants immediately following birth
to make him or her eloquent.
Traditional practices can also be beneficial to
child health and their abandonment in favor of
modern alternatives may also lead to an in-
crease in rates of infant mortality. A prominent
example is the change in attitudes toward
breast-feeding practices. Traditionally mothers
breast-feed their children for a fairly extended
period of time allowing the infant to receive
adequate nutrition and to improve birth spac-
ing, which was reinforced by polygyny. But, in
the last decade, with the promotion of infant
formula, many mothers have been discouraged
from breast-feeding. The loss of long birth in-
tervals has produced a negative impact on both
mothers and children (Hanmer & White, 1999).
519
Tabooed foods
Wide variety of meats: turkey, eggs, bandicoots, large
lizards, fats
Dugong, honey, yams, turtle, monitor lizard, pig
Fresh meat, eat only cold foods
(d) Concluding comment
Anthropological studies can help us better
understand the findings from quantitative
analysis of demographic data. The examples
given here are of excess female mortality, inci-
dences when certain groups suffer relative ne-
glect, and variations in dietary and medical
practices. But the examples also illustrate how
quantitative data provide a framework to raise
the questions to be addressed by qualitative
approaches.
5. CONCLUSION
Both quantitative and qualitative techniques
have their place in social analysis. There is no
reason to give primacy to one over the other.
Different methods are required to tackle dif-
ferent problems, and a combination of tech-
niques will frequently yield greater insight than
either one used in isolation. The need is rather
for mutual professional respect. This paper has
outlined several areas of analysis where insights
from qualitative methods can feed into a de-
velopment of quantitative analysis. Specifically,
there has been little economic modeling of the
household in rural Africa. While there is an
existing literature from South Asia and there
are parallels in the organization of work, at-
tempts at modeling should draw on insights of
the institutional setting provided by anthropo-
logical work. Key insights are the importance
and nature of nonpecuniary labor exchange
and the endogeneity of household size as a
means of obtaining labor. Such models, espe-
cially to the extent that they reflect the house-
hold life cycle, may help explain problems of
economies of scale in household consumption.
Child survival is a case in which quantitative
methods provide the basis for qualitative work,
which helps understand quantitative analysis of
demographic data.
520 WORLD DEVELOPMENT
NOTES
1. For an elaboration of the ways in which quantitative
and qualitative techniques can be combined see Carv-
alho and White (1996).
2. An ethnology of disciplines could usefully explore
some oppositions—hard/soft, rigorous/arbitrary, sys-
tematic/impressionistic—including the macho language
economists may use when talking about their own
discipline.
3. See Mukherjee, Wuyts, and White (1998) for a fuller
discussion of the philosophy underpinning data analysis.
4. Quoted by Leamer (1983), attributed to Coase.
Leamer adds two more: ‘‘econometricians, like artists,
tend to fall in love with their models’’ and ‘‘there are two
things you are better off not watching in the making:
sausages and econometric estimates’’ (1983).
5. The next paragraph discusses academic findings on
the lack of robustness of the World Bank’s work on
aid effectiveness. Yet a recent review of the aid
effectiveness literature by the World Bank’s research
department (Collier & Dollar, 2001) repeated the
World Bank’s findings while ignoring much of the
other literature published in the last two years (e.g.,
the papers in Tarp’s recent book on aid), including
that criticizing—some may say refuting—the World
Bank papers, and incorrectly citing some of what was
mentioned.
6. This discussion ignores a number of other econo-
metric criticisms of the World Bank’s work, for which
see Lensink and White (2000).
7. Or, in the extreme, simply falsify the data. One of
the best known examples of this is work by Burt to show
that IQ is hereditary rather than a function of upbring-
ing based on a study of twins separated at a young age
(see Joynson, 1989). Among the techniques he used to
establish this theory as accepted wisdom was to work
with younger researchers using data he provided, with
the results published only under the name of the other
researcher. He then cited these papers as independent
verification of his views. The data, it transpired, were
made up.
8. This section is partly based on White and Leavy
(2001).
9. A more extreme statement of this position was made
by a former World Bank chief economist for Africa who
stated that he had crossed out any sections of African
poverty assessments referring to rural labor markets
since these did not exist.
10. There are few systematic data to substantiate this
view (but there are some showing, for example, lower
enrollments of orphans), but Howard and Millard’s
description of the death of the malnourished son of a
woman living in the compound of her well-off uncle is a
forceful illustration of the point (cf. Howard & Millard,
1997).
11. The persistence of slavery is ignored in most
poverty analysis. The tragic case of a slave ship off the
West African coast at the time of writing the first draft
of this paper did little to help re-establish the issue on the
policy agenda. See www.antislavery.org.
12. Hanmer, Pyatt, and White (1999) review 26 World
Bank poverty assessments for African countries. Several
adjust for adult equivalence, but none do so for
household economies of scale.
13. The conversion factors often also assume lower
consumption requirements for women. This is con-
tested by some, especially where women are responsi-
ble for a large part of ‘‘heavy work’’ (e.g., agricultural
production and carrying water, firewood and other
items).
14. Model outcomes depend on whether a household
wishes to run down its assets in old age so that they
are all consumed by the time of death, or if they wish
to make provision for later generations. These consid-
erations are captured by overlapping generations
models.
15. See Whitehead (1990) for explicit discussion of the
implications of household structure for economic mod-
eling.
16. Infants are those aged 12 months or less, and
children those aged one to four years inclusive.
17. See Hanmer and White (1999) for a survey of such
papers.
18. But, the possibility of determining sex before
birth means that discrimination can take place through
 COMBINING QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE
sex-selective abortion. This has been the case for some
time in China, where abortion is readily available and
shows up as the male–female ratio at birth being less
than the norm of 1.06. Croft shows that for mothers
with two or more children, all of which are female, the
probability of a female fetus being aborted is very
high.
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