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 2012.
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.