Are you s(ec)ure? assessing the sensitivity of land tenure security estimates to survey design choices

Abstract

Land tenure security is critically linked to several dimensions of development, including increased access to credit, investment, productivity, food security, and intra-household bargaining power, among others. Inequities across and within households, including productivity differentials, can be traced to and explained by difference in access to land. Despite being featured in two SDG indicators, very few countries have adequate data to understand and monitor land tenure security. Remedying that demands a shift from household-level data collection to more and better data on individual-level land rights. This paper leverages a unique methodological experiment in Armenia to rigorously examine the implications of respondent strategy and data collection level on land tenure data quality in the context of SDG monitoring. Findings from the randomization of households across treatment arms reveal significant differences in the estimation of certain land tenure components, especially when using proxy respondents at the parcel level. Gender disparities in land rights are prevalent, with men consistently reporting higher land tenure security than women across all measurement methods, with the point estimates of the implied gender gap varying with survey design choice. Heterogeneity and further analyses also shed light on a set of trade-offs deriving from factors such as areas of residence and gender of the reporting individual, financial constraints, survey structure, and respondent fatigue. The study contributes to the understanding of land tenure measurement and aligns with broader initiatives aimed at efficiently collecting comparable individual-level data at scale while informing policy decisions and SDG reporting.