India Human Development Survey (IHDS)

I have directed India Human Development Survey since its inception in 2003. The India Human Development Survey (IHDS) is a nationally representative, multi-topic panel survey of 41,554 households in 1503 villages and 971 urban neighborhoods across India. The first round of survey was completed in 2004-5; data are publicly available through ICPSR. The second round of IHDS reinterviewed most of these households in 2011-12 (N=42,152) and data for same can be found here.

IHDS has been jointly organized by researchers from the University of Maryland and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi. Reeve Vanneman and Amaresh Dubey were the Co-Principal Investigators for this phase of the work. Funding for the first and second round of this survey is provided by the National Institutes of Health, grants R01HD041455 and R01HD061048. Additional funding is provided by The Ford Foundation and The World Bank.

The third round of IHDS will be carried out in 2020-2022 and is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01HD041455) and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-003352). It has also added new partners and collaborators, Keera Allendorf from University of Indiana and Stephanie Chardoul from the University of Michigan. Feinian Chen is now the Co-Principal Investigator for the project along with continued leadership from Amaresh Dubey, while two survey methodologists Santanu Pramanik and Sharan Sharma are providing leadership for enhancing methodological innovations in the next round of IHDS. We are fortunate to have a vast network of researchers and students at NCAER and Maryland enhancing design, monitoring and analysis of the IHDS data. The IHDS data collection is guided by an advisory panel of eminent researchers, policymakers, members of India’ statistical system and civil society representatives. This advisory panel is chaired by India’s first chief statistician and former chairman of National Statistical Commission, Dr. Pronab Sen.

The IHDS is a unique public resource for studying India’s highly diverse society in an era of rapid social transformation. It has been downloaded by over 9,000 students and researchers worldwide and has led to more than 500 papers and dissertations and has provided data for over 400 newspaper and magazine articles.

IHD team distributes a monthly newsletter showcasing research by IHDS users that reaches about 5000 researchers, journalists and policymakers. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.