Statistics of Household Income and Expenditure and Their Distribution
Statistics of household income and expenditure and their distribution presented in this
chapter were obtained from the National Statistical Office as collected from the Report of the
Household Socio-Economic Survey.
The
National Statistical Office collected data on household income and consumption
expenditures in 1957. Comparable survey known as “The Household Socio-Economic Survey” was
carried out in 1968 - 1969 and was repeated every five years. In 1986, due to the rapid economic
expansion the National Statistical Office carried out the survey every two years in order to set the
anti - poverty policy. For 1999, National Statistical Office carried out the special periodic Household
Socio-Economic Survey when there was an economic crisis in Thailand. The objective is to obtain
indicators measuring the impact of economic crisis on living condition of Thai people.
The survey covered all private, non-institutional households residing permanently in
municipal areas and non-municipal areas of all regions. However, it excluded the part of population
living in transient hotels and rooming houses, hostels, boarding schools, temples, military barracks,
prisons, welfare institutes, hospitals and other such institutions. It also excludes households of
foreign diplomats and other temporary residents.
Household expenditures
Total household expenditures are the summation of the amount spent on purchasing goods
and services needed for living essential, the value of goods and services received as part of pay,
home-produced and consumed (including rental value of owner occupied dwellings), or received
free from other sources, and the amount spent on taxes, contributions, insurance premiums, lottery
tickets, interest on debts, and other non-consumption items.
Consumption expenditures are total household expenditures, excluding non-consumption
expenditures.
Household expenditures exclude the capital formation expenditures such as purchase or
hirepurchase of house and land, purchase of jewelry, savings-life insurance premiums, and provident
funds etc.
