Relevance
The
Household Budgetary Survey is a survey conducted among the private households
in Malta and Gozo to gauge changing expenditure patterns by residential
households. The main aim of the survey
is to illustrate patterns in household expenditure and how these are
distributed among different goods and services.
The HBS reveals changes in consumption trends among Maltese households
over a number of years. Detailed
information is also collected on various sources of household income,
possession of durable goods, cars, basic information on housing and on various
other demographic and socio-economic characteristics.
A primary
objective of the Survey is the utilisation of data as an updated basis for the
Retail Price Index (RPI) which measures changes in prices, and which is an
important indicator of the impact of inflation on family budgets. The
survey also provides indications on different standards of living in terms of
income and expenditure. The survey
findings are of interest to a diverse community of users, and results are used
for planning, policy, and monitoring purposes.
Methodological
description of survey
Data
collection is approximately every 5 years and the last one was carried out in 2015. Fieldwork
is undertaken by a team of interviewers and supervisors, the majority of whom are
specially recruited for the survey. All
data is captured through face-to-face interviews.
Data
collection is carried out over a whole calendar year and the target population
consists of all private households in Malta and Gozo. Households are chosen in a systematic random way
according to the characteristics of the households and the persons within each
household, mainly the address details, number of males and females, age groups,
and employment status. A gross sample
size of around 7,000 households is chosen.
Participating
families are asked to report their day-to-day expenditure, as well as other
occasional expenditure, over a period of two weeks. To this end, the year in which the survey is
held is segmented into periods of two weeks.
Every two-week period will see families from all over Malta and Gozo
taking part in the project. Consequently,
every week, one group of families will be starting their assignment while
another group will be concluding it. In
the course of the two-week period, the participating families are visited by an
interviewer.
The main
questionnaire is filled by the interviewers and it includes a wide range of
socio-economic questions including a complete demographic profile of each
household member; basic information on the dwelling and income information at
individual level and irregular outlays (normally occurring on a quarterly or annual
basis).
On the
other hand, the primary scope of the diaries is to collect regular expenditures
and main product information such as physical quantities and places of purchase. Participating households have to list all
their daily purchases in the diaries during the two-week period starting on the
first Monday of the reference period. Diaries
are expected to be filled by household members, although interviewers assist
the households in case of difficulty. A
total of 2 diaries are distributed to each participating household for each of
the two reference weeks.
Accuracy
and reliability of data
Information
on the accuracy and reliability of data can be viewed in a dedicated metadata report available on the NSO’s metadata website.
Timeliness
and punctuality of data
Scheduled
news releases related to HBS are published on the NSO’s website.
These are published on the pre-established date as scheduled in the Advance Release Calendar which can also be viewed on the
NSO’s website.
For
the past Household Budgetary Surveys, two publications were published. The first one was published in May 2003 and
covered reference period March 2000 to March 2001. A second one was published in August 2010,
covering reference period February 2008 to February 2009.
HBS
data is submitted to Eurostat within the date stipulated and is normally sent between
one to three years after end of reference period.
Accessibility
and clarity of data
HBS
publications are made available to external users on the NSO’s website. Additionally, a national metadata report is
available on the NSO’s metadata website.
Coherence
and comparability/consistency of data
The HBS
has no legal basis; hence each country has its own targets, methodology and
survey programming. Data supplied by
each country are not perfectly harmonised.
The lack of comparability is particularly true for income and
expenditure components and ways how certain expenditure items are classified.
Results
are comparable at EU level in terms of common concepts, definitions, and
classifications.
The
general methodology (target population, sampling strategy, coverage,
definitions, etc.) of various rounds of HBS data collection, is practically the
same. However some changes in the
definitions and collection modes were made in the last HBS, particularly in
consumption expenditure classifications and income. A direct comparison between different waves
is thus not possible.
In the case of HBS, the most relevant sources
for cross-comparison include the weights used in the Harmonised Index of
Consumer Prices (HICP), the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions
(EU-SILC), Labour Force Survey (LFS), National Accounts (NA), and various
administrative and other sources. Considering
that these are totally different instruments, with different methodologies,
sources and even sometimes definitions, overall coherence is quite acceptable