The incomes and acquisitions of Brazilian families will be the focus of the 2008/2009 edition of the Consumer Expenditure Survey (POF).

The incomes and acquisitions of Brazilian families will be the focus of the 2008/2009 edition of the Consumer Expenditure Survey (POF), which will investigate, from May 19, 2008 to May 2009, 65 thousand Brazilian households located all over the country and inhabited by about 230 thousand persons. The survey will require approximately R$ 23 million of investments in equipment and in data collection, part of which (43%) generated by a partnership with the World Bank and the Ministry of health. The release of the first results is expected for the end of 2009.

Besides investigating the weight and height of each household member, the income received by them, the collective and individual expenses of the family (water, electricity, telephone), the edition of the 2008/2009 POF will deal with the ingestion o food products in and outside the household, the consumption of organic light and diet products, and the use of services and products which aim at the sustainable development of, for example, selective garbage disposal and the use of electricity from other alternative sources. In addition, the survey will investigate expenses related to health, tourism and culture. POF data collection – which lasts one year – is the longest among all those of IBGE surveys, so that it becomes possible to cover all the consumption habits observed in Brazil throughout the year. The period of data collection – nine days in each house – is also the longest in the Institute. After selecting the households which will be visited (sample), IBGE sends to household members a letter of introduction and an explanatory folder with information about the survey. The interview is usually done within four visits, on different days, with duration of approximately 1 hour, in a period of nine days.

Being conducted by 750 supervisors and survey agents, the collection is structured in four quarters throughout the year, and, each one covering 1,175 sectors, from a total of 4,700 sectors in all the regions of the country. In the urban sectors, the survey will cover 13 households, and in the rural ones, 18. Most of (5,982) the households visited were located in Minas Gerais, followed by Espírito Santo (4,385), São Paulo (4,137) and Bahia (3,465). In spite of being less populated states, Espírito Santo (4,385 households) and Alagoas (3,298 households) will be visited by a big number of households, which is due to the characteristics of each state in relation to the group of variables applied to define the sample sizes.

One of the reasons for the low level of refusal to the survey, only 3% in the last POF 2002/2003, according to the coordination of POF, is the investment in the training of surveyors. Their work is aimed at the commitment with the informants, which means the survey agents have flexibility to adapt to the necessities of the informant. One of the main challenges of data collection, the lack of time of dwellers due to long hours of work and study, is solved with the conduction of the survey at night or during the weekend, when necessary.

Besides the role of portraying society through income, consumption and life conditions, POF will provide information for the evaluation of IBGE’s project of creating satellite accounts of health, tourism and culture (participation in the GDP of each one of these sectors), and also for the updating of the consumption basket of the Consumer Price Indexes produced by IBGE and their respective weights. Another highlight in this POF collection will be the use of a sample plan for the selection of sectors and households aimed at the integration of all the household surveys of IBGE, such as, for example, the National Household Sample Survey – PNAD and the Monthly Employment Survey – PME.

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¹ IBGE’s satellite accounts are an extension of the System of National Accounts and allow the integration of statistical data, classifications and methods of analysis to expand the general model of the National Accounts. Satellite accounts came as a reply to the necessity of methods of analysis for National Accounts in a certain area, in a flexible way and without overloading or disorganizing the integrated structure of the System.