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128 CHAPTER 5


household consumption allows changes in living standards and welfare among households to be measured.


The method of data collection consists of interviewing households during many visits. The direct observation of the expenditures of each sample house- hold lasts four weeks. Nonetheless, for large expenditures that are made less frequently, such as the purchase of durable goods, the observation period lasts one year; in this case, the month-long enquiry is supplemented with retrospective accounts of the 11 months preceding the start of the survey. The part of the survey that is devoted to food consumption relies on measur- ing the food intended for household consumption ration by ration and day by day during a week for each sample household.


The survey questionnaire on household budgets and expenditures consists of a main questionnaire aimed at recording collective household expendi- tures and a complementary questionnaire aimed at registering the individual expenditures of each household member with an income. For the part of the main questionnaire relative to expenditures, informa- tion is requested on the expenditures each household member makes to sat- isfy his or her needs and the needs of those household members in his or her charge, notably, the expenditure categories of a collective nature (such as food, housing, services). The main survey questionnaire is composed of four sections: the household roster, a list of the economic activities of members aged 15 years and over, another list of the economic characteristics of active workforce members, and information on regular household expenditures (INS 2002).


Estimation of the Micromodule


As we have explained, every five years the Institut National de la Statistique (INS) carries out a survey on household budgets and consumption. The survey conducted in 2000 covered a sample of 12,018 households. Although the data from this survey were not available for this analysis, we were able to obtain raw data on approximately 400 households from the 1995 household expendi- ture survey. The exploration and manipulation of these data revealed many inconsistencies, which give us some reservations regarding the quality of the data. The sample of 400 households is considered representative of the whole sample of 10,415 households surveyed in 1995.


Table 5.14 provides details on the composition of the households according to the occupation of the head of household for the original sample and for the subsample used in this analysis. This indicates that the subsample is represen- tative of the larger sample and, presumably, the population as a whole. We assume that the total revenue of each household is equal to its total expenditures; we ignore savings and debt. Indeed, a homogeneous savings level for all households in the sample will eventually be determined when the


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