Deepti Sharma on Survey Methods and the Hidden Biases in Economic Data

Ideas of India

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I spoke with Deepti Sharma, who's an Assistant Professor at Ahmedabad University. She completed her PhD in public policy from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Management of Health Services at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. Her current research focus is empirical methods, applied microeconomics, public health and gender studies. We discussed her job market paper, Does it matter who you ask for Time Use Data? We talked about the systematic bias in proxy reporting when compared to self-reporting in time use surveys, some techniques used to fix those biases, the gendered nature of these biases, policy implications of using these time use surveys and much more.

Recorded September 12th, 2024.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:12) - Grand Tamasha

(00:02:42) - Proxy-Reporting Versus Self-Reporting in Time-Use Surveys

(00:07:16) - Gender Bias and Systematic Bias in Proxy-Reported Data

(00:10:27) - How Cultural Norms and Gender Perceptions Shape Reporting

(00:16:59) - Challenges in Collecting Accurate Time-Use Data

(00:19:34) - Methodological Approaches to Working with Proxy-Reported Data

(00:24:43) - Suggested Approaches to Conducting Time-Use Surveys

(00:31:21) - Impact of Climate Change on Gendered Agricultural Work

(00:33:17) - Hysterectomy Rates and Health Insurance Policies in India

(00:36:03) - Outro