Household Living Conditions Survey 2003

The HLCS uses the following survey tools:

1. Main interviews

Main interview questionnaires collect general data on households, such as household composition, housing facilities, availability and use of land plots, cattle and poultry, characteristics of household members: anthropometric data, education, employment status. Interviewing of households takes place at the survey commencement stage. In addition, while interviewing, the interviewer completes a household composition check card to trace any changes during the entire survey period.

2. Observation of household expenditures and incomes

For the observation, two tools are used:

• Weekly diary of current expenditures. It is completed directly by a household twice a quarter. In the diary respondents (households) record all daily expenditures in details (e.g. for purchased foodstuffs - product description, its weight and value, and place of purchase). In addition, a household puts into the diary information on consumption of products produced in private subsidiary farming or received as a gift.

Households are evenly distributed among rotation groups, who complete diaries in different week days of every quarter. Assuming that the two weeks data are intrinsic for the entire quarter, the single time period of data processing (quarter) is formed by means of multiplying diary data by ratio 6.5 (number of weeks in a quarter divided on the number of weeks when diary records were made). Inclusion of foodstuffs for long-time consumption is done based on quarterly interview data.

• Quarterly questionnaire. It is used to interview households in the first month following the reporting quarter. Researchers collect data on large and irregular expenditures, in particular those relating to the purchase of foodstuffs for long-time consumption (e.g. sacks, etc.), and also data on household incomes. Since recalling all incomes and expenditures made in a quarter is uneasy, households make records during a quarter in a special quarterly expenditures log.

The major areas for quarterly observation are the following:

• structure of consumer financial expenditures for goods and services;
• structure of other expenditures (material aid to other households, expenditures for private subsidiary farming, purchase of real estate, construction and major repair of housing facilities and outbuildings, accumulating savings, etc);
• importance of private subsidiary farming for household welfare level (receipt and use of products from private subsidiary farming for own consumption, financial income from sales of such products, etc.);
• structure of income and other financial sources of a household. We separately study the income of every individual household member (remuneration of labor, pension, scholarship, welfare, etc.) and the income in form payments to a household as a whole (subsidies for children, aid of relatives and other persons, income from - sales of real estate and property, housing and utility subsidies, use of savings, etc.).

3. Single-time topical interviews

Single-time topical interviews questionnaires are used quarterly and cover the following topics:

• household expenditures for construction and repair of housing facilities and outbuilding
• availability of durable goods in a household
• assessment by households members of own health and accessibility of selected medical services
• self-assessment by a household of adequacy of its income
• household's access to Internet