Water, Walls, and Bicycles: Wealth Index Composition Using Census Microdata.

In this study, we produce a valid and consistent variable for socioeconomic status at the household level with census microdata from ten developing countries available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series - International (IPUMS-I), the world's largest census database. We use principal components analysis to compute a wealth index based on asset ownership, utilities, and dwelling characteristics. We validate the index by verifying socioeconomic gradients on school enrollment and educational attainment.