Past research has demonstrated the use of survey paradata for (i) monitoring survey progress and informing adaptive survey designs; (ii) analyzing and adjusting for survey non-response; (iii) computing granular interview duration statistics during the survey fieldwork and as an input into the design and costing of future surveys, (iv) tracking answer modification patterns and compliance with the intended interview flow; (v) identifying falsified data, (vi) verifying compliance with the intended visits to sampled enumeration area and household locations, and (vii) studying respondent behavior and predicting future survey participation (Choumer-Nkolo et. al., 2019; <mark>Couper and Kreuter, 2013;</mark> Gordeev et al., 2021; Jans et al., 2011; <mark>Kreuter et al., 2010; Kreuter and Olsen, 2013; M</mark> urphy et al., 2019; Virgile, 2016). While these research efforts have been informed by the surveys conducted in high-income countries, the comparable applications are scarce in low- and middle-income countries, where building NSO technical capacity in the use of paradata for survey design, management, and quality control has been identified by the United Nations Intersecretariat Working Group on Household Surveys as one of the technical priorities for positioning household surveys for the next decade (Carletto et al., 2022).

To gain paradata-powered insights on survey respondent burden, survey costs, and interviewer effects for the first time in low- and middle-income contexts, this paper uses paradata generated as part of the national household surveys implemented by the NSOs in Cambodia, Ethiopia and Tanzania between 2018 and 2020 using the Survey Solutions CAPI platform. These surveys were supported by the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS+) project and included (a) a multi-topic socioeconomic household questionnaire, and (b) a cross-country comparable individual questionnaire that was administered to the adult household members in private interviews to collect self-reported information regarding their work and employment, as well as ownership and rights over physical and financial assets, among other topics.

The paper starts out by providing precise country- and questionnaire module-specific duration estimates, as proxies for respondent burden, for an extensive range of household and individual questionnaire modules. These statistics can serve as operationally relevant inputs that can inform the decisions of survey practitioners interested in implementing similar questionnaire modules in comparable contexts. The average household interview ranges from 82 minutes in Cambodia to 120 minutes in Tanzania. Food consumption tends to be the most time-consuming household questionnaire module to complete with an average of 22 to 26 minutes, depending on the country. Besides food consumption, household modules on non-food consumption, housing, and household roster consistently rank among the highest in interview length. Likewise, the average individual interview ranges from 13 minutes in Ethiopia to 25 minutes in Cambodia, with the individual questionnaire modules on land ownership, labor, health and education consistently ranking among the top time-consuming modules.

The disaggregation of the paradata allows for a more detailed look into respondent burden. One could find the average minutes per question conditional on certain specifications (for example, 3