NIDS Panel Data Course Held at the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME)

A special 3-day Introduction to the NIDS Panel Data Course was held at the DPME offices in Hatfield from 6 to 8 September 2017. Given that NIDS is an initiative of the DPME, the aim of the course was to build a base of Stata users within the DPME with the skills to descriptively analyse the NIDS data. Topics covered during the course included an introduction to the design of the NIDS survey; the content of the NIDS questionnaires; an introduction to Stata data management and key descriptive commands in Stata; as well as how to examine transitions over time.

The DPME attendees reported that the skills that they acquired from the course would be useful for their future analytical work; mentioning the usefulness of these skills for developing research reports and policy reviews; responding to policy questions; as well as interrogating whether policy implementation is having an impact on the lives of ordinary South Africans.

Team NIDS from SALDRU, UCT Represented at the 2017 Blisters for Bread Charity Fun Walk

On Sunday 27 August 2017, members of the NIDS operations team from SALDRU, within UCT’s School of Economics, and their families (including babies in prams in tow), supported the Blisters for Bread Charity Fun Walk. The Charity Fun Walk, which had a 5km and a 10km route, started and ended at the Green Point Cricket Club, and meandered along the Sea Point Promenade. Whilst it was an early and chilly start to the day, the beginnings of Cape Town spring brought clear sunny skies. A fun-filled day was had by all, not forgetting the important cause – fighting the battle against hunger in schools.

Blisters for Bread is an annual fundraising event for the Peninsula School Feeding Association (PSFA) which is a non-profit organisation that aims to address hunger in school attending children.

NIDS Represented at the 2017 Roundtable on Innovations in Household Panel Studies: Challenges and Opportunities

NIDS had the privilege of being invited to and attending, the roundtable on “Innovations in Household Panel Studies: Challenges and Opportunities” that followed the “Understanding Society Scientific Conference 2017”, which took place from 11-13 July at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. The roundtable was a small session, which hosted senior staff from some of the world’s longest-standing panel studies. The aim of the roundtable was for the panel studies present to discuss some of the challenges they encounter in the implementation of their respective panel surveys as well as possible approaches to addressing them.

Represented by Mike Brown, NIDS was given the opportunity to present on some survey implementation challenges in a third-world context, most especially the challenges associated with maintaining high-income households in the study. During its 5th cycle of data collection, NIDS encountered significant challenges with recruiting newly selected high-income households, predominately from wealthy areas, into the study. As such, NIDS had to use a myriad of awareness and marketing campaigns in an attempt to successfully recruit these households into the panel.

Delegates expressed similar challenges with high-income households in their respective contexts, whilst not to the same extent as NIDS, as well as with respondents’ increased suspicion of government, although in the case of the US, this is appearing to manifest itself within lower income households rather than higher income households.

A useful takeaway for NIDS was the candid discussions that were had on the possibilities of introducing online self-completion of questionnaires, and the respondent incentivisation strategies that could possibly accompany this methodology and work within a South African context.

NIDS Hosts 3-day Panel Data Course

NIDS hosted a 3-day Panel Data Course from 3 - 5 December 2018 at UCT’s School of Economics. The course provided an introduction to analysing the NIDS Wave 1-5 data using Stata. More specifically, the techniques used in the analysis of longitudinal household survey data (i.e. panel data) were explored. Accordingly, some of the topics covered over the 3 days included panel data structure; transitions over time; weighting and differential attrition. The course was designed for people with prior experience using Stata to analyse cross-sectional household survey data. According to many of the attendees, the skills that they developed during the course will prove useful for their future research endeavours.

Please subscribe to the NIDS course mailing list if you would like to be notified of when other NIDS courses, become open.

NIDS holds workshops with government departments and universities or anyone interested in learning more about the NIDS data. These workshops primarily aim to inspire further use of NIDS and share findings from NIDS.

Recent workshops

Summer Institute in Computational Social Science; Cape Town, 22 and 25 June 2018
Presenter: Kim Ingle
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• What NIDS is and what it is for.
• Panel vs. cross-sectional data.
• The NIDS survey and data collection.
• Engaging with NIDS.
• Detail about accessing and using the NIDS public release data.
• Some findings from NIDS.
• Research challenges.
• Examples of NIDS data that may be of interest

University of the Free State – Bloemfontein, 24 April 2018
Presenter: Ingrid Woolard
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• What NIDS is and what it is for.
• The value and significance of the NIDS panel data.
• Example findings from the first four waves of NIDS.
• What support there is available to access and use the data.
• How one could engage with NIDS by using the NIDS data or research which used the NIDS data.

Research Consultants and M&E Practitioners – Pretoria, 9 March 2018
Presenters: Samantha Richmond, Kim Ingle 
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• An overview of what NIDS is and what it is for.
• Panel compared to cross-sectional data.
• The value and significance of the NIDS Panel data.
• An explanation of the NIDS panel data and practicalities of the data’s collection.
• Example findings from the first four waves of NIDS.
• What support there is available to access and use the NIDS data.
• How one could engage with NIDS by using the NIDS data or research which used the NIDS data.
• Discussion on the findings presented and other potential uses of the NIDS panel data.

Research Consultants and M&E Practitioners – Cape Town, 24 November 2017
Presenters: Kim Ingle, Samantha Richmond
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• An overview of what NIDS is and what it is for.
• Panel compared to cross-sectional data.
• The value and significance of the NIDS Panel data.
• An explanation of the NIDS panel data and practicalities of the data’s collection.
• Example findings from the first four waves of NIDS.
• What support there is available to access and use the NIDS data.
• How one could engage with NIDS by using the NIDS data or research which used the NIDS data.
• Discussion on the findings presented and other potential uses of the NIDS panel data.

Medical Research Council - Cape Town, 19 September 2017
NIDS representatives: Samantha Richmond, Dr. Nicola Branson, Kim Ingle
Topics covered during the ‘question and answer’ workshop included:

• The sample design of NIDS.
• The NIDS panel data.
• Panel data compared to cross-sectional data.
• Discussion about the NIDS smoking, alcohol consumption and anthropometric data, and their collection.

University of Limpopo – University of Limpopo, 7 September 2017
Presenter: Dr. Cecil Mlatsheni
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• An overview of what NIDS is and what it is for.
• An explanation of the NIDS panel data.
• Some example findings from the first four waves of NIDS.
• Description of how one could engage with NIDS by using the NIDS data or research which used the NIDS data.

University of Cape Town (UCT) Mphil Programme Evaluation class – UCT, 7 September 2017
Presenter: Samantha Richmond
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• An overview of what NIDS is and what it is for.
• Panel data compared to cross-sectional data.
• An explanation of the NIDS panel data and practicalities of the data’s collection.
• Description of how one could engage with NIDS by using the NIDS data or research which used the NIDS data.
• Some poverty dynamics findings from NIDS using income as well as Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) approaches.
• Discussion of these poverty dynamics findings, and potentials for the use of NIDS in the South African Programme Evaluation area.

Genesis Analytics Evaluation for Development Practice – Video Conference, 21 July 2017
Presenter: Kim Ingle
Topics covered during the video conference presentation included:

• An overview of what NIDS is and what it is for.
• An explanation of the NIDS panel data.
• Description of how one could engage with NIDS by using the NIDS data or research which used the NIDS data.
• Discussion of potential topics in the NIDS data and NIDS research which may be of interest to the attendees.

National Treasury – Pretoria, 12 June 2017
Presenters: Dr. Cecil Mlatsheni, Dr. Nicola Branson, Kim Ingle
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• The value and significance of the NIDS panel data.
• The nature of the data and the research process.
• Key poverty and inequality dynamics findings across the first 4 waves of NIDS.
• NIDS and other national panels and their policy interface.
• Evidence from NIDS regarding pathways through education and training (as an example of the purposes for which the NIDS data can be analysed).
• The use of NIDS Admin data.
• Discussion by attendees on the value of the NIDS panel data for the Department of Treasury and future processes and engagement.

Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) – Hatfield, 6 April 2017
Presenters: Dr. Cecil Mlatsheni, Dr. Nicola Branson, Kim Ingle
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• An overview of NIDS.
• Example findings from the first four waves of NIDS.
• Findings from a Wave 4 discussion paper on South African youth labour market churn.
• Findings from education research which used the NIDS panel data.
• NIDS and other national panels and their policy interface.
• Discussion on the value of the NIDS panel data and its use.

Parliament’s Research Unit - Cape Town, 8 February 2017
Presenter: Dr. Cecil Mlatsheni
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• An overview of what NIDS is and what it is for.
• An explanation of the NIDS panel data.
• Some example findings from the first four waves of NIDS.
• Description of how one could engage with NIDS by using the NIDS data or research which used the NIDS data.

Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) – Pretoria, 27 January 2017
Presenter: Dr. Cecil Mlatsheni
Topics covered during the workshop included:

• An overview of NIDS.
• The value and significance of the NIDS panel data.
• Example findings from the first four waves of NIDS.
• What support there is available to access and use the data.
• Reflections on what the data does and does not offer and what panel data could offer which would be of further value to the DSBD for planning and policy purposes.
• Discussion about how the data could be of immediate value to DSBD and what arrangements could be put in place to further promote and utilize the NIDS panel data.