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News Bulletin
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
The 2009 National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure was conducted
1. Introduction
The National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure (NSFIE) aims to acquire comprehensive information concerning household consumption, through survey items such as income and expenditure, savings and liabilities, major durable goods owned, and the status of dwellings, houses and land owned. The SBJ has conducted the NSFIE every five years since 1959. This survey reveals income and asset level, structure and distribution concerning household consumption, income and assets.The 11th survey was conducted from September to November in 2009.
There is a similar survey entitled the monthly Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES). Its main object is to reveal trends in average family income and expenditure in time series for households nationwide. However, the FIES has limitations in analyzing structures in detail due to its sample size (about 9,000 households). In contrast, the NSFIE has largely covered about 57,000 sample households in order to enable detailed analyses by area characteristics or by various households, such as by yearly income group, by age group of household head, and by household receiving public pension or governmental pension *1).
Note: *1) Governmental pension is the pension or lump-sum payment which is paid to those who retired from public service.
2. Outline
The NSFIE was conducted by enumerators who visited each household, and distributed a questionnaire and collected it. The survey channels were as follows:SBJ - Prefectures (47) - Municipalities (about 1,000) *2) - Supervisors - Enumerators (about 4,400) - Households (about 52,400 two-or-more-person households and about 4,400 one-person households).
There were 4 types of questionnaire: Household Schedule, Family Account Book, Durable Goods Schedule, and Yearly Income and Savings Schedule. Two-or-more person households were requested to complete the Family Account Book daily for 3 months (from September 1 to November 30), while one-person households were requested to do this for 2 months (from October 1 to November 30). Households were requested to fill in all items about cash expenditures and/or payment in kind on the Family Account Book. "Workers' households" and "Household head not working" *3) were also requested to fill in their income.
Note:*2) All the cities (784) and towns and villages (219) selected from 998 (as of January 1, 2009)
*3)"Workers' households" refer to households whose heads are employed as clerks or wage earners by public or private enterprises, such as government offices, private companies, factories, schools, hospitals, shops ,etc.
"Household head not working" are households whose head has no occupation.
In the 2009 NSFIE, the following new approaches were introduced.
- To increase the number of categories of occupation in the questionnaires and tabulate more details on household consumption by job conditions, in order to obtain the relation between diversifying job conditions and household consumption.
- To record the use of electric money on the Family Account Book, in order to obtain the actual condition of usage in purchasing goods and services that has recently been on the increase.
- To adopt an online survey in selected areas.
3. Publication
The major results of the 2009 NSFIE are to be published as follows:- Major Durable Goods Ownership-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------July 2010
- Family Income and Expenditure, and Savings and Liabilities of One-Person Households------------------------------September 2010
- Family Income and Expenditure, and Savings and Liabilities of Two-or-More-Person Households-------------------December 2010
- Family Assets-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------March 2011
These results are expected to be utilized in various fields, such as policy planning, economic analysis, marketing and so on, as one of the most important resources in Japan to provide comprehensive information about the family consumption structure.
(Source) 2009 National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure (SBJ)
For further survey information, see the web site below.
http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/zensho/index.htm
