The Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) is conducted by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) with the most recent HIES conducted in 2016. In HIES 2016, 330 enumeration blocks were randomly selected from all 20 administrative Atolls and Male' with a sample of 4,985 households.
HIES 2016 is the first such survey where the sample was designed in such a way that the results are representative at the level of each Atoll in addition to Male'. The survey was conducted in 172 administrative islands (excluding Male') in the country at the time. The high coverage of the islands and the resulting travel costs increased the total cost.
The first nationwide HIES conducted in 2002-2003 covered 834 households from the capital Male' and 40 islands randomly selected from all the Atolls. And the second national wide HIES was conducted in 2009-2010 covered 600 households from the capital Male' and 1,460 households from the islands randomly selected from all the Atolls.
NBS plans to conduct a nationwide HIES every 5 years in the future. Due to extensive revisions in the design of the survey instrument, results on poverty are not comparable to previous years.
Kind of Data
Sample survey data [ssd]
Unit of Analysis
household and individual
Scope
Notes
The main objective of HIES is to produce reliable statistics on different components of income and expenditure of households in Male' and the Atolls to assess the economic well-being of the population. Specifically, the results will be used to bring about improvements in the national accounts, consumer price index and the poverty statistics of the country. Additional aspects to cover domestic tourism were included upon request from the Ministry of Tourism to collect data required for tourism satellite accounts. Similarly details on health expenditure were included upon request from the Ministry of Health to collect data required for national health accounts.
Coverage
Geographic Coverage
The geographic domains of analysis for the HIES are the 21 atolls of the Maldives, as well as the national level. There is also interest in obtaining HIES results at the national level for the following administrative island size groups: (1) less than 500 population; (2) 501 to 1000 population; (3) 1001 to 2000 population; and (4) greater than 2000 population. Data were not collected in resort and industrial islands.
Producers and sponsors
Primary investigators
Name
Maldives National Bureau of Statistics
Sampling
Sampling Procedure
The sampling frame for the HIES 2016 is based on the summary data and cartography from the 2014 Maldives Population and Housing Census. The survey covers all of the household-based population in the administrative islands of each atoll of the Maldives, but excluded the institutional population (for example, persons in prisons, hospitals, military barracks and school dormitories).
A stratified two-stage sample design is used for the HIES. The primary sampling units (PSUs) selected at the first stage for the administrative islands are the enumeration blocks (EBs), which are small operational areas defined on maps for the 2014 Census enumeration. The average number of households per EB is 65.
Deviations from the Sample Design
Data were not collected in resort and industrial islands
Response Rate
98.5% response rates for the number of sampled households
Data Collection
Dates of Data Collection
Start
End
2016
2016
Data Collection Mode
Face-to-face [f2f]
Supervision
Permanent Staff of NBS did the supervision. Each supervisor was in-charge of all statistical activities carried out in the assigned island. These field works and supervisor were given a thorough training before they were entrusted with the survey operations. A focal point was assigned in each Atoll to oversee the work.
Throughout the survey field opera??on was monitored centrally by NBS. During Male' field enumeration, all the enumerators have to report to NBS at 9:00 and sign their attendance before commencing their work and the field operation work finishes at 19:00. In between enumerator can take lunch break of 2 hours. All the enumerators have to return their files with the questionnaires to the respective supervisors by end of the day. All the update has to be given and the filled questionnaires handed over to the supervisor.
Supervisors were assigned to check the daily work of the enumerators and to solve the issues arises during the field work. For the supervision of the atoll/islands NBS staffs were assigned to monitor and take their daily updates from NBS through phone on a daily basis. Additionally, Atoll coordinators checks the daily attendance and solve any issues faced by the enumerators at the Atoll level. Given that the supervisors were selected from the trainings held for enumerators, they are also exposed to the same trainings and practical experience. This made it is difficult for them to handle some of the technical issues that arise during the actual survey.
Data Collection Notes
The data collection period was from March to May 2016 and August to November 2016 with a break in-between during Ramazan. To collect data face-to-face method has been adopted with a pre- designed questionnaire. The data collection activities in the islands took place over 8 days. Day 1 was assigned for the listing process of the selected block. By the end of the day listing was completed and the sample was taken using the random table provided to the team. The rest of the 7 days were allocated to fill the survey questionnaires. Fifteen households were selected from each block. For each block two teams were assigned and the workload was divided between the two teams. One team filled eight household
information while the other team filled seven household information throughout 7 days. Including the travel days, the process took 10 days in every island in every round.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires
The questionnaire was developed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in consultation with the World Bank (WB), International Labour Organization (ILO) and United National Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). Several meetings were conducted to discuss the HIES questionnaire during 2015, beginning with a data users workshop held on 22 April 2015. After conducting several pretests (K.Gulhu, K. Dhiffushi, K.Himmafushi, and Male') during the period June 2015 to January 2016, the questionnaire was finalized in January 2016.
In order to accommodate important data requirements of other government agencies, meetings were held with relevant personnel. In this regard focused discussions were held with Ministry of Tourism to incorporate the domes??c tourism into the HIES Questionnaire. Similarly, meetings were held with Ministry of Health to formulate the questions to capture details of health expenditure required to compile National Health Accounts.
During the HIES questionnaire design, International Labour Organization (ILO) provided the technical guidance in the development of Labour Force module, which was newly introduced in HIES 2016 according to the most recent ILO guidelines. World Bank (WB) provided the technical guidance to improve the methodology to better capture the poverty aspects, with a special focus on including questions relevant to capture the ownership of durable goods and their user value, capture food consumption and food away by a newly introduction food consumption module, and to better capturing the rental value of owner occupied housing. Technical experts from World Bank were involved in some of the pretests and during the questionnaire finalization process. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Statistics advisor provided overall technical guidance in development of the questionnaire, during the data users workshop and participated in initial pretests. This work was led by the technical team of NBS.
Data Processing
Data Editing
As the survey was on hold during the Ramadan period, the manual editing and coding of the 3 batch of the forms was carried out during Ramadan period. The coding of data started during June 2016 and was able to complete by the end of July 2016 using 10 coders who also worked as data collection officers in the survey. In order to reduce the coding errors and also to maintain consistency, 4 staff from the NBS was assigned as supervisors during the coding operation.
Coding of the second batch of the questionnaires started during December 2016 using 6 coders and additional staff from NBS were actively involved in the coding.
The classification used to code industry was International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC) Rev. 4 and to code occupation, International Standard Classification of Occupation (ISCO) 08 was used. Classification of Individual Consumption According to purpose (COICOP), 2003 was used to give code for food and non-food items in the forms. COICOP codes were given at 7-digit level for food items and non-food items. Most of the COICOP was already pre-coded in the questionnaire and only few needed to be coded. Revision of the international Standard.
During the manual editing, all the questionnaires by household level were stamped together and assigned a serial number to the household which was provided by the data entry team. Form 4(Individual form) and Form 3 (Expenditure Unit form) information was verified with Form 2 (member listing form) information. Coders verified if all the members in Form 2 was recorded in Form 4. If the and sex was not filled in Form 4 (Individual form) than coders transferred this information from Form 2 to Form 4. In form 3 (expenditure unit form) if the expenditure unit number was missing this information also was transferred from form 2 to form 3. These checks were necessary to done before sending to data entry as Form 2 (member listing form) was decided not to enter. Classification of Education (ISCED) 39c/19, resolution 20 was used to identified the field of education. ISCED code was given at 4-digit level code with first two digits was from ISCED and last two digits was localized one code produced by the NBS to detail out the field of education. Atoll Island codes were the codes used in Census 2014. ISIC, ISCO and Atoll Island codes were in four-digit level.
Access policy
Confidentiality
Data publicly available
Citation requirements
Maldives National Bureau of Statistics, HIES 2016.