Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2002-2003

Due to difficulties with funding for the 2003 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, the Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics (FIBOS) could initially only conduct the urban part of the survey (from March 2002 to February 2003). The rural part could only be conducted when the funding was restored (from May 2003 to April 2004). This separation of the urban and rural data collections presented challenges in deriving national estimates of income and expenditure since the time periods needed to be adjusted for comparability. In addition, some households that migrated in the period from the rural to urban areas may not have been captured by either data collection. This may especially be true of those Indo-Fijian cane farmers who left their farms as their leases expired.

A pilot survey tested the questionnaire and the administrative arrangements in place, leading to improvements in questionnaire and fieldwork arrangements.

The FIBOS conducted training programmes for enumerators and supervisors at its four centres, followed by examinations to select those qualified. Some of the training coincided with the running of the SIAP/SPC Sampling and Estimation Course. The training covered conduct of interviews, as well as the content of the questionnaires.

Data collection for each of the urban and rural rounds were continuous over a 1-year period. For each survey, a quarter of the sample households were covered in a 3-month period sub-round. In effect, there were four independent sub-samples for each round. Each sub-round sample was distributed into lots to ensure data was collected continuously for the whole 1-year period.

The FIBOS undertook considerable publicity through the media, including radio and the Ministry of Information's television programme: Dateline. Publicity fliers containing some background information on the survey and its importance were circulated to households in the selected areas. Posters were also posted at public places such as hospitals, district offices, shops and schools. In Fijian rural areas, proper protocal was followed with the Turaga-ni-Koro and church leaders, to ensure full cooperation from the community.

Fieldwork arrangements were delegated to 4 field superintendents who put together their work plans, assigned the supervisors and enumerators, and ensured the regular accountable financing of their required activities, including travel, subsistence and fees.

The arrangments for the interview depended on the availability of the head of household. For the diary, the enumerators were required to visit the houshold daily for two weeks in order to minimize ommisions due to weaknesses in the recall.

The Enumerators were instructed to complete work in a selected EA within a time frame of 3 weeks. The first week was spent on listing all households in the EA and the following two weeks for gathering information on Schedule 2 (recurrent expenditure) Schedule 3 (2 week expenditure diary), and Schedule 4 (income).