Data on economic mobility available to researchers 

The EGC-CMF Tamil Nadu Socioeconomic Mobility Survey (TNSMS) includes all persons in a random sample of 10,000 households in 200 rural villages, as well as 200 samples of non-rural areas of in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Data collection for the survey was completed in 2010 and has three main components: 

  1. A questionnaire administered to all households in each of the 200 villages (census households)
  2. A set of questionnaires based on in-house interviews with the 10,000 samples households
  3. Village/community questionnaires

There are three main features of the TNSMS design

  • All transactions by the sampled households in rural areas will be linked with the census households and with immediate relatives of the heads of household not residing in the villages. This is to more precisely characterize social networks and interlinking of contacts.
  • All individuals are administered internationally standardized cognition tests.
  • All individuals in the sampled households will be followed, wherever they reside, to fully measure social and spacial mobility.