Outline of the Survey of Household Economy

1 Survey Objectives

  This survey is intended to grasp conditions surrounding consumption in terms of a) ICT-related products, which has shown major increases in recent year, and b) high-value products and services with low frequency of consumption, as a means of gaining a more accurate understanding of personal consumption trends.

2 Universe and sampling

  The survey unit is nationwide households in Japan,and sample households are selected based on the stratified two-stage random sampling;

a. Sampling of survey points 

  The entire country is stratified into districts and urban areas,and a total of approximately 3,000 survey points(enumeration districts of the Population Census) are selected from the sampled municipalities.  

b. Sampling of households 

  Ten households are selected from each survey point,making a total of some 30,000 households. 

  One of the 10 selected households is a one-person household. 

3 Survey items

  The following items are included in the survey:

a. Items related to household conditions (Questionnaire A)

• Items relating to the household
• Viewing of terrestrial digital broadcasts and BS broadcasts
• Utilization of Internet 
• Utilization of electronic money 

b. Items pertaining to specific consumption each month (Questionnaire B)

• Items related to the household
• Amount paid over one month for specific goods and services
• Total amount paid by the household
• Use of the Internet in terms of consumption

4 Survey method

  The survey is entrusted to a private survey agency. Enumerators (survey takers) will leave questionnaires with target households. Either recollection by enumerators or mail-in by target households will be used to collect the questionnaires.

5 Survey period

  The survey is conducted every month.

6 Alternation of target households

  Target households are continuously surveyed for one year, and then substituted with another household.

  All target households are divided into 12 groups, which are be rotated on a regular basis. Accordingly, each group is replaces to another group after one year. Individual groups are made up of approximately 2,500 households, which is one-twelfth of all target households. Each month, the survey will begin for a new group.

  Any household that cannot continue with the survey as a result of moving or some other reason and for which the remaining survey period is one month or more is replaced by a substitute household for the remaining month or months.

7 Tabulation

  Tabulation is carried out by the contracted private survey agency.

a. Major tabulation points are

• Items related to characteristics of the household 
• Items related to viewing of terrestrial digital broadcasts and BS broadcasts 
• Items related to Utilization of Internet 
• Items related to Utilization of electronic money 
• Items related to monthly payments per household for specific goods and services

b. Estimate formula The national and regional averages were estimated as follows.

  There are differences in the sampling ratios of the covered households by stratum.
Therefore, the reciprocals of the sampling ratios were used as the multiplication ratios (linear multiplication ratios) for the tabulation of the items used for the estimation of the household ratios. Using these ratios, the multiplication ratios for the ratio estimation were obtained from the results of the labor force survey.
The results were estimated using these two multiplication ratios namely the linear multiplication ratios and the multiplication ratios for the ratio estimation. However, in the case of single-person households, "1" was used for the linear multiplication ratio.

  The quarterly and annual averages were obtained by calculating the simple mean values from the monthly findings.

The Number of Households of a Month Average

Total Expenditure of a Month Average

8 Notes

  The survey is undertaken as a collection of statistical reports in compliance with the Statistical Reports Coordination Law (Law No. 148, 1952) since 2002.

  The revelation of the survey details to others as well as the utilization of the questionnaires by the enumerators and survey personnel for non-statistical purposes are strictly prohibited by the law (Statistics Law).

  The collected questionnaires are placed in strict custody and burned up after the statistics are prepared.