Life History Data

This project aims to improve the quality and scope of data collected on sexual relationships and behavior.
The study focused on two specific goals.

The first was to employ a novel survey instrument called the Relationship History Calendar (RHC) and to compare the quality of sexual behaviour data captured by the RHC to that collected by a standard Sexual Partnership Questionnaire (SPQ), similar to the one used in Demographic and Health Surveys (For more details see: Luke, Shelley, and Zulu., forthcoming in Demography).

The second was to create a matched partner data set, by interviewing recent sexual partners of the respondents. This allows us to evaluate the same partnership from the perspective of both the male and female partners.

Selection method: The sample includes 1,275 young people ages 18–24 (referred to as Index Respondents) and 308 of their recent sexual partners (referred to as Matched Partners). Enumeration areas (EA) mapped by the Government of Kenya’s Central Bureau of Statistics were used as primary sampling units. Of the urban EAs, 45 were randomly chosen for the survey, and every other household in each enumeration area was selected for inclusion in the study. One eligible respondent was selected randomly from each household. Randomization of the survey instruments occurred at the interviewer level; interviewers administered the RHC or SPQ to alternate respondents whom they interviewed.

Below are tables giving total numbers of completed interviews according to the type of instrument used.

¹RHC stands for Relationship History Calendar
²SPQ stands for Sexual Partnership Questionnaire

Five men and five women were hired as interviewers. Interviewers were trained to administer both the RHC and SPQ. They were trained using detailed questionnaire manuals. The research team was particularly concerned that respondents tally and describe all types of romantic and sexual relationships for the RHC and all types of sexual relationships for the SPQ, so these aspects were stressed during the training. In addition, because the RHC does not use scripted questions, its manual gave examples of how to ask each question and probe for consistent responses. Finally, general interviewing exercises were practiced as well as rapport building techniques that could be used in the more conversational RHC interviews. Training took place for eight days, which included practice RHC and SPQ interviews in a non-sample area.

1) Facesheet

Every respondent and partner contacted is assigned a facesheet containing identifying information about the respondent and which type of survey instrument they received, the RHC or the SPQ. The facesheet was also used after the interview to identify eligible sexual partners in the last year and to record whether or not these partners were interviewed.

2) Introduction

The RHC and SPQ survey instruments both begin with an identical introductory section, which consists of scripted questions regarding background demographic characteristics of respondents such as age, education, marital status, ethnicity, place of birth (rural/urban), household economic status, and a current household roster.

3) Partnerships

Sexual Partnership Questions (SPQ):

Respondents assigned to the SPQ group were given a limited set of questions regarding sexual partners in the last year. These questions are similar to those given in the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), but were modified slightly to allow for direct comparisons with data collected in the RHC. The SPQ records information on up to five of the respondents’ sexual partnerships in the last year. Unlike the conversational nature of the RHC interview, the questions on the SPQ are scripted and ordered; interviewers must ask the exact question as written on the survey and in the order that they appear.

Relationship History Calendar (RHC):

Respondents assigned to the RHC group were given the Relationship History Calendar. The RHC gathers retrospective information on monthly changes in residence, schooling, employment, and household composition. In addition, the RHC was specifically designed to capture the dynamic processes of youths’ romantic and sexual life histories. Unlike the SPQ which focuses solely on sexual partnerships within the last year, the RHC records detailed information on both romantic and sexual relationships over the 10 years. These details include their partners’ demographic characteristics, relationship characteristics (including why they began the relationship, the initial type of relationship, whether they wanted to marry their partner, and the beginning and end of the relationship), sexual and reproductive behaviors in each partnership (including use of condoms, frequency of sex, pregnancy and childbirth), and beliefs about whether their partners were sexually exclusive. Please see the INSTRUCTIONS FOR RELATIONSHIP HISTORY CALENDAR explaining how the RHC was filled in and what we meant for each of the questions.

RHC Follow-up:

After completing the RHC, all respondents assigned to the RHC group were asked several follow-up questions, where interviewers probe to ensure complete reporting of all the respondents’ sexual and romantic partners in the last year and the last 10 years. In the follow-up, RHC respondents are also asked several scripted questions about their first sexual partnership if it was not covered in the last 10 years and to report the total number of sexual partnerships in their lifetime.

4) Exit Interview

At the end of both the SPQ and RHC interview process, additional information was collected. The exit interview elicits information on the acceptability and reliability of the survey instrument from both the respondent and the interviewer.

The English version of the questionnaires can be downloaded in .pdf format below.

RHC Questionnaire : it contains the facesheet, the introductory section, the RHC calendar survey instrument (shortened), the RHC follow-up and the exit interview. For the full RHC calendar survey instrument, click here .

SQP Questionnaire : it contains the facesheet, the introductory section, the SPQ survey instrument and the exit interview.

Four main data files are available for analysis.

A list of all variables contained in each data file can be found in their respective codebooks. Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the corresponding codebooks (see below).

 Datasets:

1) Respondent-Level File

 The Respondent-Level File is entitled Respondent-Level_Jan2011.dta

Click here for the Codebook associated to the Respondent Level File.

2) Partnership-Level Files

There are two separate Partnership-Level data files: One for SPQ and one for RHC.

2.1) The SPQ-Partnership-Level File is entitled SPQ-Partnership-Level_Jan2011.dta

• Unit of observation: All reported partnerships in the SPQ

• Contains data on all reported partnerships in the SPQ, including 669 partnerships reported by the Index Respondents and 222 partnerships reported by the Matched Partners

• SPQ Index Respondents with no partners are, therefore, not included

• Variables come directly from the Partnership questions asked in the SPQ

• To merge the SPQ-Partnership-Level data with the Respondent-Level Data use the variable "respondentid".

Click here for the Codebook associated to the SPQ Partnership Level data File.

2.2) The RHC Partnership-Level File is entitled RHC Partnership-Level_ Jan2011.dta

• Unit of observation: All reported partnerships in the RHC

• Contains data on all reported partnerships in the RHC, including 1588 partnerships reported by the Index Respondents and 321 partnerships reported by the Matched Partners

• RHC Index Respondents with no partners are, therefore, not included

• Variables are derived from the Relationship History Calendar data (see below). We have constructed the key partnership variables that are most comparable to those collected by the SPQ

• To merge the RHC-Partnership-Level data with the Respondent-Level Data use the variable "respondentid".

Click here for the Codebook associated to the RHC Partnership Level data File.

3) RHC Calendar File

The RHC Calendar File is entitled RHC_Calendar_Jan2011.dta

This file contains all the data collected by the Relationship History Calendar.

• Unit of Observation: “person-months”. Since the calendar begins in January 1998, each person (either an Index Respondent or a Matched Partner) has 114 or 115 observations (or person-months), depending on whether they were interviewed in June or July, 2007

• The total number of person-months for 1,583 respondents is 83,957

• Data specific to each partnership is denoted by the prefix or suffix _p1, _p2, etc…).

Rachel E. Goldberg. Forthcoming. “Family instability and early initiation of sexual activity in western Kenya.” Demography.

Clark, Shelley and Rohini Mathur. 2012. “Dating, Sex, and Schooling in Urban Kenya.” Studies in Family Planning, 43(3):1-14.

Nancy Luke, Hongwei Xu, Blessing Mberu, and Rachel E. Goldberg. 2012. “Migration Experience and Sexual Debut in Urban Kenya:  An Event History Analysis.” Studies in Family Planning, 43(2):115-126. 

Nancy Luke, Rachel E. Goldberg, Blessing Mberu, and Eliya M. Zulu. 2011. “Social Exchange and Sexual Behavior in Young Women’s Premarital Relationships in Kenya.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 73(5):1048-1064. Click here for online version.

Alena Davidoff-Gore, Nancy Luke, and Salome Wawire. 2011. “Dimensions of Poverty and Inconsistent Condom Use among Youth in Urban Kenya.” AIDS Care, 23(10):1282-1290. Click here for online version.

Clark, Shelley, Caroline Kabiru, and Eliya Zulu. 2011. “Do Men and Women Report Their Sexual Partnerships Differently?: Evidence From Kisumu, Kenya.” International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 37(4):181-190. Click here for online version.

Luke, Nancy, Shelley Clark, and Eliya Zulu. 2011. “The Relationship History Calendar: Improving the Scope and Quality of Data on Youth Sexual Behavior.” Demography, 48(3):1151–1176. Click here for online version.

Clark, Shelley, Caroline Kabiru, and Rohini Mathur. 2010. “Relationship Transitions Among Youth in Urban Kenya.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 72:73-88. (NIHMS225376). Click here for online version.

Kabiru, Caroline W, Nancy Luke, Chimaraoke O Izugbara, and Eliya M Zulu. 2010. "The correlates of HIV testing and impacts on sexual behavior: evidence from a life history study of young people in Kisumu, Kenya." BMC Public Health, 10(1):412. Click here for online version.

Xu, Hongwei, Nancy Luke, and Eliya Msiyaphazi Zulu. 2010. “Concurrent Sexual Partnerships among Youth in Urban Kenya: Prevalence and Partnership Effects.” Population Studies, 64(3):247-261. Click here for online version.

Clark, Shelley and Cassandra Cotton. "The Impact of Migration and Family Support on Transitions to Adulthood in Urban Kenya."

"The Impact of Migration and Family Support on Transitions to Adulthood in Urban Kenya." (Shelley Clark and Cassandra Cotton). Population Association of America Annual Meeting; San Francisco, May 4, 2012.

"Dating, Sex, and Schooling in Urban Kenya." (Shelley Clark and Cassandra Cotton). Union for African Population Studies (UAPS); Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, December 6, 2011.

“Dating and Secondary School Completion in Urban Kenya.” (Shelley Clark and Rohini Mathur). Population Association of America Annual Meeting; Dallas, April 16, 2010.

“The Contemporary Process of Courtship, Engagement, and Marriage in Urban Kenya.” (Shelley Clark, Caroline Kabiru and Rohini Mathur). IUSSP; Marrakesh, Morocco, October 1, 2009.

“Relationship Transitions Among Youth in Urban Kenya.” (Shelley Clark). Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University, April 22, 2009; Demography Workshop, Population Research Center, University of Chicago, April 23, 2009.

“Measuring the Gender Gap in Young Men’s and Women’s Reported Sexual Partnerships in Urban Kenya.” (Shelley Clark, Caroline Kabiru and Eliya Zulu). Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, New York, February 7, 2008; Social Statistics Speakers Series, McGill University, Montreal, March 5, 2008; and the Population Association of America Annual Meeting; New Orleans, April 17, 2008.

“The New Relationship History Calendar: Improving Sexual Behavior Data Among Youth in Kenya” (Nancy Luke, Shelley Clark and Eliya Zulu). The Fifth African Population Conference; Arusha, Tanzania, December 11, 2007.

“The Relationship History Calendar: Improving the Scope and Quality of Data on Youth Sexual Behavior” (Nancy Luke, Shelley Clark, and Eliya Zulu). Department of Sociology, Brown University, Providence, March 2008; Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, New Orleans, April 2008; Wits-Brown-APHRC-Colorado Population Colloquium, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, July 2008; and Demography Workshop, University of Chicago, Chicago, November 2008.

“Concurrent Sexual Partnerships among Youth in Urban Kenya: Prevalence and Partnership Effects” (Hongwei Xu, Nancy Luke, and Eliya Zulu). Poster Presentation, Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, Detroit, April 2009; IUSSP Conference, Marrakesh, Morocco, October 2009.

“Employment, Transactional Sex, and Reproductive Health Risks among Young Women in Urban Kenya” (Nancy Luke, Rachel Goldberg, Blessing Mberu, and Eliya Zulu). IUSSP Seminar on Gender and Empowerment in 21st Century Africa, Nairobi, August 2009; Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, Dallas, April 2010.

“Waiting to Have Sex: The Timing of First Sexual Intercourse within Young People’s Relationships” (Hongwei Xu, Nancy Luke, and Caroline Kabiru). Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, Dallas, April 2010; Wits-Brown-APHRC-Colorado Population Colloquium, African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya, May 2010; and Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Atlanta, August 2010.

“Migration Experience and Sexual Debut among Youth in Urban Kenya: An Event History Analysis” (Nancy Luke, Hongwei Xu, Blessing Mberu, and Rachel Goldberg). IUSSP Seminar on Youth Migration and Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries, Rio de Janeiro, December 2010; Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, Washington, April 2011.