Socio-Economic Status in Africa Scale (SESAS): A new Measure for Young Adults in Namibia, Kenya, and South Africa

Assessing socioeconomic status (SES) is important but complex and requires a contextually-based approach. Using data from Namibia, Kenya, and South Africa (N = 3,920), this study aimed to create the Socio-Economic Status in Africa Scale (SESAS) for young adults. Seventeen indicators were culturally-adapted or newly developed to capture young adults’ access to resources across domains. Nine items related to asset ownership, infrastructure access, and education intercorrelated, had good internal consistency, configural measurement invariance, and alignment results that support their use for cross-cultural comparisons between Namibia, Kenya, and South Africa. The African-specific resources (farm/land, livestock) appeared to capture urban-rural lifestyle. This scale-development approach implied a reflective conceptualization of SES. We also considered reconceptualizing SES as socioeconomic conditions and investigated indicator-outcome associations. Five indicators showed significant associations but were country-specific and not suitable for a comparative measure. We propose the SESAS as a new SES measure for young adults in sub-Saharan Africa.