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Housing Index
The Housing Index uses the structure
of the house and sometimes the compound to differentiate between
economic levels of households and identify those who are poor.
Since housing is generally the most important asset of households
and since people generally invest a great deal in their houses,
the building itself represents an extremely visible reflection
of household wealth. The size of the house and compound, the material
used for building the house, the number of rooms, the presence
of running water and bathroom facilities, all taken together provide
very strong impressionistic evidence of household economic levels.
The housing index, variations of which are used by several MFIs,
but which has been standardized best by CASHPOR, uses these
features to determine who is poor and who is better
off.
How Does Targeting Work:
Field staff walk systematically through
villages or sections of villages. They look at each house, eliminating
those that are obviously expensive and well built. The others
are scored according to size, construction materials for walls,
floor and roof, and sometimes other variables such as water supply,
toilets, access to electricity, etc. Scores for each indicator
are then added to create a composite score. Cutoff scores are
established to include households considered poor and exclude
those that are well off.
Constructing the Housing Index:
CASHPOR has been a
pioneer in developing the Housing Index. It created a
composite index known as the CASHPOR House Index using
the size of the house, its structural condition, the
quality of walls, and the quality of the roof. It scores houses
based on:
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| This is an
example of a house of a poor family. |
- Size
Small: 0 Medium: 2 Big: 6
- Structural condition
Dilapidated: 0 Average: 2 Good
6
- Quality of walls
Poor: 0 Average: 2 Good: 6
- Quality of roof
Thatch/Leaves: 0
Tin/Iron sheets: 2 Permanent roof: 6
A cut-off score of
total points is established to separate the houses of
the poor from those of the non-poor. The index is
context specific and CASHPOR has refined its
index for adaptation to different regions.
The characteristics
MFIs consider to create their housing indices can be
quite minimum to being relatively extensive.TSPI
in Philippines has a fairly simple housing index. It scores houses
based on:
1. Size (Big: 4,
Medium: 2, Small: 0)
2. Structure (Firm:
4, Moderate: 2, Bad: 0), and
3. Roof (Tiles: 2,
New: 1, Old: 0.5 and Nipa: 0).
SHARE
in India, on the other hand, brings into account quite
extensive housing characteristics in computing the
housing index. It scores houses based on:
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| This is an
example of a house of a non-poor family. |
1. Size (Big: 4,
Medium: 2, Small 0)
2. Structure (Firm:
4, Medium: 2, Bad: 0)
3. Roof material
(RCC: 4, Tiles: 3, Asbestos: 2, Zinc:1, Bamboo: 0,
Thatched: 0, Wood+ Stone
+ Mud: 1)
4. Wall material (Brick: 4, Stone: 1,
Zinc: 1, Mud: 0.5, Bamboo: 0)
5. Electric supply (Yes: 2, Shared:
1, No: 0)
6. Water supply (Own well: 1,
Community well: 0)
7. House Ownership: (Own: 3,
Inherited: 2, Rented: 1, Shared: 0)
8. Toilet (Pit: 2, Flush: 1, Open
area: 0)
9. Cooking (Gas: 3, Oil: 2, Charcoal:
1, Wood: 0, Smokeless Chulhas: 0)
10. Radio/Tape Recorder (New: 2, Old:
1, None: 0)
11. Vehicle (New moped: 4, Old Moped:
2, New bicycle: 1, Old bicycle: 0.5, None: 0)
12. Government Ration Card (Yes: 3,
Yellow: 2, White: 1, No: 0)
13. Fan (Yes: 1, No: 0).
A cut-off score of total points is
established to separate the houses of the poor from those of the
non-poor. In the case of TSPI an individual with a score below
4.5 is eligible for a loan (although adjustments to that cutoff
point are made based on the locality). Individuals with scores
of more than 20 are considered ineligible for SHARE loans, while
those with scores below 20 are interviewed further to assess their
eligibility.
Related literature:
Cost-effective
targeting: two tools to identify the poor ( )
Gibbons, D.S.; Simanowitz, A.; Nkuna, B. / Sembilan, Malaysia
and Tzaneen, South Africa: CASHPOR / SEF 1999
Overcoming
the obstacles of identifying the poorest families: using
participatory wealth ranking (PWR), the CASHPOR House
Index (CHI), and other measurements to identify and
encourage the participation of the poorest families,
especially the women of those families ()
Simanowitz, A.; Nkuna, B.; Kasim, S.; Gailey, Robert / Microcredit
Summit 2000
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