Surveys often ask us to remember things. In the last month did you do X? Or, did you eat Y in the last 7 days? Or, how much did you earn in the last 12 months? Respondents are presented with all sorts of timeframes and asked to remember stuff. But the question is: how well do they actually remember these things and how far back can they accurately remember?
Wonder no more. We have been digging into data on how people remember and how far back can they accurately do so. Our presentation at the American Association of Public Opinion Research‘s 2025 conference dug into these issues and presented findings from two USAID-sponsored studies.
The first study dug deep into how youth processed and remembered information on their work hours and earnings, especially those working non-traditional hours. In the second study, we delved into how well people could remember their own and their household members’ activities in the past 12 months. The findings from these two studies and our conclusions are available in this presentation that I and my colleague, Julie de Jong, gave at the AAPOR conference last week. Our key conclusions included:
While respondents were mostly evenly divided on their ability to recall hours worked versus amount earned, their ability to recall earnings was slightly better over longer time periods;
The 1-month or 30-day period of recall appeared to be best for both earnings and hours worked information across different types of employment;
When it comes to agricultural practices, respondents are able to report accurately on their own activities in the past 12 months;
However, their ability to do so for other household members is suspect.
Please share your thoughts, or any data that you may have, on recalling information in the Comments section below. Let’s discuss how we can more meaningfully and accurately collect this information that so often informs so much public policy and discourse.
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