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Composition and concepts of the Household Budget Survey1 General descriptionThe task of the Household Budget Survey is to describe the consumption and the living conditions of households. The Household Budget Survey produces information above all on the consumption expenditure of households, and on the structure of consumption and differences in it between population groups. The Household Budget Survey is among the oldest sample-based surveys conducted in Finland. In their present form the surveys have been carried out regularly since 1966. Two time series have been produced from the data. The older one contains comparable data from the years between 1966 and 1990, while the data of the more recent one covers the years 1985, 1990, 1994-1996, 1998 and 2001-2002. The data from the Household Budget Survey are utilised extensively for a variety of research purposes. They are used for determining the consumption of the household sector in the National Accounts, as well as in depictions of how economic welfare is distributed in Finland. The data are also exploited in the planning and monitoring of social policy measures. The Household Budget Survey is harmonised within the European Union with regard to its concepts, definitions and classifications (so-called output harmonisation). The Finnish survey is largely comparable with those conducted in other EU Member States. At the moment comparable data from the survey are available from the years 1988, 1994 and 1999. A report on the characteristics of changes in household consumption between 1985 and 2001-2002 will be published in August 2003 and it will also contain key findings from the survey conducted in 2001-2002. 2 Population, sample and non-responseThe Household Budget Survey is a sample survey. Its population consists of permanently resident private households, i.e. the household population, in Finland. In 2001, there were 2,382,000 households in Finland. Non-resident persons and those institutionalised for extended periods in hospitals, old people's homes, care institutions, prisons, etc., are excluded from the survey. The households to be included in the survey are selected by drawing a sample of individuals from the Population Register. The sample is weighted according to areas and statistical grouping of municipalities. The number of strata has varied annually and was 12 in 2001. The inclusion probability of each household within a stratum depends on the number of its members aged 15 or over. In 2001-2002 the size of the original gross sample was 8,960 persons, of whom some were excluded from the survey population. This so-called overcoverage comprised dead, institutionalised and non-resident persons. The overcoverage totalled 168 persons in 2001, which brought the net sample size down to 8,792 households. The rate of non-response has varied annually in the Household Budget Survey. The overall non-response rate was 36.6 per cent in 1998 and 37.5 per cent in 2001-2002. The impact of the non-response has been allowed for in the weight coefficients calculated for households so that the weighted distributions correspond with the distributions of the population. Because of the employed data collection methods the survey non-response is divided into interview and diary non-response. Interview non-response refers to households from which interviews are not obtained due to refusal or some other reason. Interview non-response amounted to 28.4 per cent in 1998 and to 30.7 per cent in 2001-2002. Diary non-response consists of cases where the interviews are successfully concluded but the household refuses to keep the diary or fails to return it. Diary non-response amounted to 8.2 per cent of the net sample in 1998 and to 6.8 per cent in 2001-2002. The sizes of accepted responses in the different Household Budget Surveys were as follows:
3 Data collection methodsThe survey data are collected with computer-assisted personal interviews, diaries kept by households and from administrative registers. During the interview, the structure of the household is verified against register data, and information is collected about the members of the household (occupations, activity on the labour market, etc.), and about the expenditure of the household on housing, insurance and major purchases as well as about its ownership of durable goods and indebtedness. The interviewing is conducted by Statistics Finland's Interview Organisation. After the interviews, the households keep diaries about all their expenditure for a fortnight. The sample households of the survey have been randomly divided into 26 accounting periods of a fortnight over the entire survey year so that data on their consumption during different seasons can be collected as exhaustively and reliably as possible. Administrative registers are exploited for the collection of background information. Data on the incomes and education of household members, for example, are obtained from registers. 4 Reliability of the dataSampling and the collection and processing of data influence the reliability of Household Budget Survey results. The magnitude of the random variation within the survey results can be measured with the relative standard error of the average and with confidence intervals. In 2001, the relative standard errors in the main categories of consumption expenditure are below three per cent with the exception of education (Table 1). The most reliable data are obtained for the largest consumption expenditure categories of food and non-alcoholic beverages, housing and energy. In contrast, relative standard errors are the biggest in the consumption expenditure on clothing and footwear and education. The confidence interval calculated with the help of standard errors describes the limits within which the real value for the population falls at a given reliability level. Consumption expenditure category Table 1. Averages (EUR), relative standard errors (%) and confidence intervals of household consumption expenditure in 2001-2002
When using data from the Household Budget Survey, it should be borne in mind that data reliability worsens as the examination progresses from the main category levels to more detailed ones. With the frequently purchased food category standard errors are small but they may become quite considerable with seldom bought commodities. In such cases the sample may be insufficient for reliable descriptions. Detailed classifications by background variables, such as age, socio-economic group or region also increase proportional errors in data by consumption category because the number of observations decreases. Standard error calculations describe random variation associated with survey results. In addition, non-response or lapses of memory by the respondents also entail that data on certain consumption categories can only be partially collected from the sampled households, meaning that the consumption expenditure of all households becomes underestimated. The error arising from this may in some cases, as with consumption on alcohol or gambling games, be significantly greater than the random error. The likelihood of underestimations in consumption categories can be studied by comparing the produced results with corresponding data from other statistics. Clothing and footwear expenditure in the Household Budget Survey 2001-2002 Households' average clothing and footwear expenditure in 2001-2002 and the changes therein from 1998 differed from the corresponding data obtained from other sources (e.g. National Accounts). In the Household Budget Survey for 2001-2002 clothing and footwear expenditure amounted to EUR 880 per household and in the National Accounts for 2001 this figure was EUR 1,270 per household. When the random variation and the growth in expenditure produced by the National Accounts are taken into account, the size of undercoverage is EUR 200 to 300 per household. The possible undercoverage was caused by the changes in the method and mode of data collection. Undercoverage has no effect on the consumption distributions between population groups. There is no corresponding undercoverage in the previous years' data. 5 Main concepts and classificationsHouseholdAccording to the definition, a household is formed by persons who fully or partially share meals or otherwise use their income together. A household is a broader concept than a family. A household also differs from a household-dwelling unit, which is comprised of persons who reside permanently in the same dwelling. General delimitations have been made to the definition of a household, so that its members performing compulsory military or non-military service, residing at another locality or working temporarily abroad, or temporarily hospitalised or away on business or holiday are always counted into the household. Students studying at another locality also belong to the household of their parents if they mainly live on their parents' income. Students living on their own income, such as the state study aid, form households of their own. Reference person of householdA household can be composed of one or more persons. In the interview the household member with the highest personal income during the last 12 months is defined as the reference person of the household. Some of the classification data of households are also determined according to the reference person, such as the socio-economic group and educational level of the household. Socio-economic groupTo determine the socio-economic group, the persons are first divided into economically active and economically inactive population. As a rule, all persons participating in production activities at least in six months in the reference year are classified as economically active. The economically active population is further divided into self-employed and employees on the basis of the information given in the interview. Therefore some persons taxed as employees are also classified as self-employed, typically entrepreneurs working as employees in their own enterprise. The socio-economic group of the household is determined on the basis of the reference person's socio-economic group. Consumption unitIncome and consumption expenditure calculated per consumption unit can be used to compare households of different size and structure. The use of consumption unit is here justified because large households gain so-called scale advantages over smaller households. Comparisons based on the number of household members do not allow for the fact that the household's consumption needs do not grow linearly as the number of its members increases. Member-based examination where both adults and children receive the same weight does not either take differences in consumption needs into consideration. The number of consumption units in a household can be calculated in various ways. Consumption units are defined by using the OECD's consumption unit concept in which:
The age distinguishing a child from an adult is defined in the Household Budget Survey so that 18-year-olds and older persons are regarded as adults. Consumption expenditureThe consumption concept used in the survey is largely based on international recommendations. A classification in compliance with the European System of Accounts was used in the comparable data for 1985, 1990, 1994-1996, 1998, 2001-2001. The commodities consumed by the household are collected in as much detail as possible. Household consumption expenditure includes all goods and services acquired by the household for private consumption during the survey period, including own agricultural, gardening and collected products, housing benefit, goods and services received, and current transfers comparable to consumption. Repayment of housing, consumption and other such loans is not included in consumption expenditure but they are defined as savings in statistics. Commodities used in business activities and the property considered as investment are not regarded as consumption. Consumption expenditure is formed as follows: Purchases of consumption goods and services Housing expenditure was calculated by the so-called gross rent principle in accordance with international recommendations. There an imputed rent is determined for households living in their own dwelling or in a dwelling provided as a benefit in kind on the basis of the market rent of a comparable rented dwelling. Housing benefit is the difference of imputed rent and real costs (e.g. repair costs, maintenance charges, interest and insurance). In the 1985, 1990, 1994-1996, 1998 and 2001-2002 the consumption expenditure of households is presented in net terms, that is, the income received from commodities sold by households is deducted from the expenditure used on corresponding commodities. IncomeThe same income concepts are used in the Household Budget Survey as in the income distribution statistics. The household's disposable income is calculated on the basis of the income data of all household members in the following way: Wages and salaries Päivitetty 10.4.2003 Statistics FinlandAiri Pajunen Tel.: +358 9 1734 3408 E-mail: airi.pajunen@tilastokeskus.fi |
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1.96*standard error gives the boundaries within which the real value for the population settles at the probability of 95 per cent.
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