Abstract

The 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) had the following primary objectives:

1) to gather data on family income and family expenditure and related information affecting income and expenditure levels and patterns in the Philippines; 2) to determine the sources of income and income distribution, levels of living and spending patterns, and the degree of inequality among families; 3) to provide benchmark information to update weights for the estimation of consumer price index; and 4) to provide information for the estimation of the country's poverty threshold and incidence.

Geographic coverage

The 2003 Master Sample (MS) considers the country's 17 administrative regions as the sampling domains. A domain is referred to as a subdivision of the country for which estimates with adequate level of precision are generated. It must be noted that while there is demand for data at the provincial level (and to some extent municipal and barangay levels), the provinces were not treated as sampling domains because there are more than 80 provinces which would entail a large resource requirement.

Analysis unit

The unit of analysis is the family. A family consists of the household head, spouse, unmarried children, ever-married children, son-in-law/daughter-in-law, parents of the head/spouse and other relatives who are members of the household.

In households where there are two or more persons not related to each other by blood, marriage or adoption, only the income and expenditure of the member who is considered as the household head is included.

Institutional population is not within the scope of the survey.

Universe

All households and members of households nationwide

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The 2003 Master Sample (MS) considers the country's 17 administrative regions as defined in Executive Orders (EO) 36 and 131 as the sampling domains. A domain is referred to as a subdivision of the country for which estimates with adequate level of precision are generated. It must be noted that while there is demand for data at the provincial level (and to some extent municipal and barangay levels), the provinces were not treated as sampling domains because there are more than 80 provinces which would entail a large resource requirement.

As in most household surveys, the 2003 MS made use of an area sample design. For this purpose, the Enumeration Area Reference File (EARF) of the 2000 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) was utilized as sampling frame. The EARF contains the number of households by enumeration area (EA) in each barangay.

This frame was used to form the primary sampling units (PSUs). With consideration of the period for which the 2003 MS will be in use, the PSUs were formed/defined as a barangay or a combination of barangays with at least 500 households.

The 2003 MS considers the 17 regions of the country as the primary strata. Within each region, further stratification was performed using geographic groupings such as provinces, highly urbanized cities (HUCs), and independent component cities (ICCs). Within each of these substrata formed within regions, the PSUs were further stratified, to the extent possible, using the proportion of strong houses (PSTRONG), indicator of engagement in agriculture of the area (AGRI), and a measure of per capita income (PERCAPITA) as stratification factors.

The 2003 MS consists of a sample of 2,835 PSUs. The entire MS was divided into four sub-samples or independent replicates, such as a quarter sample contains one fourth of the total PSUs; a half sample contains one-half of the four sub-samples or equivalent to all PSUs in two replicates. The final number of sample PSUs for each domain was determined by first classifying PSUs as either selfrepresenting (SR) or non-self-representing (NSR). In addition, to facilitate the selection of sub-samples, the total number of NSR PSUs in each region was adjusted to make it a multiple of 4. SR PSUs refers to a very large PSU in the region/domain with a selection probability of approximately 1 or higher and is outright included in the MS; it is properly treated as a stratum; also known as certainty PSU. NSR PSUs refers to a regular too small sized PSU in a region/domain; also known as non certainty PSU. The 2003 MS consists of 330 certainty PSUs and 2,505 non-certainty PSUs. To have some control over the sub-sample size, the PSUs were selected with probability proportional to some estimated measure of size. The size measure refers to the total number of households from the 2000 CPH. Because of the wide variation in PSU sizes, PSUs with selection probabilities greater than 1 were identified and were included in the sample as certainty selections.

At the second stage, enumeration areas (EAs) were selected within sampled PSUs, and at the third stage, housing units were selected within sampled EAs. Generally, all households in sampled housing units were enumerated, except for few cases when the number of households in a housing unit exceeds three. In which case, a sample of three households in a sampled housing unit was selected at random with equal probability.

An EA is defined as an area with discernable boundaries within barangays consisting of about 150 contiguous households. These EAs were identified during the 2000 CPH. A housing unit, on the other hand, is a structurally separate and independent place of abode which, by the way it has been constructed, converted, or arranged, is intended for habitation by a household.

The 2006 FIES involved the interview of a national sample of about 51,000 sample households deemed sufficient to gather data on family income and family expenditure and related information affecting income and expenditure levels and patterns in the Philippines at the national and regional level. The sample households covered in the survey were the same households interviewed in the July 2006 and January 2007 round of the LFS.

Sampling deviation

The estimates from the 2006 FIES include results of the first FIES visit for the NCR based on questionnaires recovered from fire. The fire that hit the NCR’s Statistics Office on October 3, 2006 damaged 58 percent of the total questionnaires for the FIES first visit. Questionnaires that were encoded and processed cover around 42 percent of these questionnaires. In the preliminary results, values for the burned questionnaires were imputed using a ratio which requires data from the recovered questionnaires and data from corresponding questionnaires from the second visit. The ratio was computed by getting the sums of the total income and total expenditure in the recovered questionnaires from the first visit and the sums of the same data from corresponding second visit questionnaires and then by dividing the sums from the second visit by the sums from the first visit. The annual estimates on income and expenditure for NCR were computed by dividing the second visit values by the computed ratio. For the final results, the annual estimates for the NCR were computed by multiplying by 2 the second visit data. This imputation procedure was opted after it has been established that there was no significant difference between using the ratio and the multiplier ‘2’.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The 2006 FIES adopts a questionnaire design wherein separate questionnaire with the same sets of questions for both visits will be used. The sample household is interviewed in two separate operations each time using the half-year period preceding the interview as reference period. This scheme envisions to improve the quality of data gathered since it minimizes memory bias of respondents and at the same time captures the seasonality of income and expenditure patterns. The use of separate questionnaire with the same set of questions for both visits was used starting 2003 FIES. In previous FIES, the same set of questions for each semester (two enumeration periods) were contained in one questionnaire.

To further reduce memory bias, the concept of "average week" consumption for all food items shall be utilized for the 2006 FIES. Moreover, the reference period for Fuel, Light and Water, Transportation and Communication, Household Operations and Personal Care and Effects is limited to the past month and in some specified cases, the concept of average month consumption shall be used. For all other expenditure groups, the past six months shall be used as reference period.

The questionnaire has four main parts consisting of the following:

Part I. Identification and Other Information (page 1-3) (Geographic Identification, Other Information and Particulars about the Family)

Part II. Expenditures (page 4-45) Section A. Food, Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco Section B. Fuel, Light and Water, Transportation and Communication, and Household Operations Section C. Personal Care and Effects, Clothing Footwear and Other Wear Section D. Education, Recreation, and Medical Care Section E. Furnishings and Equipment Section F. Taxes Section G. Housing, House Maintenance and Minor Repairs Section H. Miscellaneous Expenditures Section I. Other Disbursements

Part III. Income (page 46-55) Section A. Salaries and Wages from Employment Section B. Net Share of Crops, Fruits and Vegetables Produced and/or Livestock and Poultry Raised by Other Households Section C. Other Sources of Income Section D. Other Receipts Section

Average and median market, total and after-tax income of individuals by visible minority group, Indigenous group and immigration status, Canada and provinces.