Brief Introduction
I.
Main Contents
Data in this chapter show the people’s
living conditions in
II.
Sources of Data on the Living Conditions of Urban Residents
Data on the living condition of urban
residents come from the data collected through a sample survey on the urban
households conducted by the Office of Household Surveys of the NBS. The main
contents of the survey include persons in the household and the household
composition; cash income and expenditure of the household; quantity of major
commodities purchased and expenditure; the employment of household members; the
housing condition; and the possession of durable consumer goods.
III.
Methodology for Urban Household Survey
Urban household survey is organized by the
Office of Household Survey of the NBS. The NBS survey offices in the provinces,
autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government as
well as the survey offices in selected cities and counties are responsible for
collecting data in accordance with the survey scheme stipulated by the NBS and
submitting the data to the offices at higher levels.
The survey had covered only non-farm
households until 2001. Starting from 2002, the survey covers the households in
district areas of all city and county towns.
Sample cities and towns in urban areas are
selected by using stratified random sampling method. Firstly, all the urban
areas and towns of all provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities
directly under the Central Government) are stratified into three strata
according to population size: large and medium-sized cities (at and above
prefecture level), county cities and county towns; secondly, the sample size is
decided by proportion of population in selected stratus to the provincial
total; thirdly, cities and towns are arranged in ranking the annual average
wages of the employed persons, then with the accumulative population in each
city and town sample cities and towns are selected by systematic sampling
scheme according to the size of the samples.
The selection of sample households in urban
areas is done by two steps: the first step is to have a one-off large sample
survey; the second step is to select a small sample from the large sample to be
used as regular sample households for diaries.
The large sample survey is conducted for
every three years; the objective is to provide sample frame for regular surveys
and basic information for data evaluation of regular surveys. In the large
sample survey, samples in sample cities and towns are selected by systematic
sampling method schemes, such as two-phase sampling and stratifying method,
two-stage (multi) method and probability proportional to size (PPS) method.
Namely, stratification is done at district level, and then PPS systematic
sampling method is used to select sample communities/resident’s committees,
finally the same method is used to select dwellings from the selected
districts/resident’s committees. In some large cities, three-stage sampling
method is used. First, the communities/resident’s committees are selected.
Secondly, sample districts are selected. Thirdly, sample dwellings are
selected. A survey will be conducted to the large samples or the first phase samples
to collect relevant information on household population, persons employed, income and so on. Then grouping is made based on
the information collected, small samples or the second phase samples are
selected according to proportions which are regular sample households to keep
diary.
The national sample included 66,000
households at the end of 2011.
IV.
Sources of Data on the Living Conditions of Rural Residents
Data on the living conditions of rural
residents come from data collected through the sample survey on rural
households, which is organized by the Office of Household Survey of the NBS.
The main contents of the survey include the basic condition of rural
households, housing conditions, income, consumption expenditure, consumption of
major consumer goods and the quantity of durable consumer goods owned.
V.
Methodology for Rural Household Survey
Sample survey on rural households is
conducted by first selecting sampled villages and then selecting households in
the selected villages in each province, with all rural households in the
province as the population. A combination of various sampling approaches is
used to identify a total of 74,000 households selected from 7,100 villages
throughout the whole country.
It is required that the sampling error should
not exceed ±3%, with a confidence probability as 95%. In order to ensure the
accuracy of the survey data on the rural households, two accounts are designed
for the respondent households by the Office of Household Survey of the NBS: the
cash account and the account on goods in kind. Nearly 10 thousand assistant
enumerators have been recruited to help the households keep good accounts and
to check on a timely fashion and to and tabulate the data from the survey.
In order to overcome the tedium of respondent
households and to ensure that the sample is accurately representative over time
and reflects the changing rural social and economic situation, a rotation
sampling scheme is implemented, and the complete cycle of rotation is 5 years.