How should an interviewer handle a situation where the indicator is obviously irrelevant?
It is preferable to simply instruct the interviewer to fill in a zero or “no” when s/he already knows or can plainly see that the household does not possess or eat a particular item. An interviewer should be permitted to skip over questions when the answer is obvious, such as the possession of vacuum cleaners in mud huts, whether people ate only cassava in the last 7 days when their house is full of TVs, stereos and the like, or when members of the household serve the interviewer snacks. Some of the questions applied in very poor regions (ownership of a motorbike, a metal roof, etc.) will be out of place simply because the people are so much poorer than others in the country. There is no need to ask a question if the answer is obvious. It can be embarrassing for both the interviewer and interviewee to ask about something that poor people obviously do not have. It is important to remember that we are not measuring relative poverty; we are measuring absolute poverty. Measuring relative p
