Sample surveys, such as the Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES), are conducted at irregular intervals due to high costs involved, thus securing funds for such activity is often difficult. The most recent HIES was conducted in 2015-16.
Cook Islands 2015-16 Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES)
The 2015/16 is the second HIES to be conducted in the Cook Islands; the first was in 1998. In 2004/05, a HES was conducted which excluded questions on income.
HIES collects a wealth of information on HH income and expenditure, such as source of income by industry, HH expenditure on goods and services, and income and expenditure associated with subsistence production and consumption. In addition to this, HIES collects information on sectoral and thematic areas, such as education, health, labour force, primary activities, transport, information and communication, transfers and remittances, food expenditure (acquisition) and gender.
The Pacific Islands regionally standardized HIES instruments and procedures were adopted by CISO for the 2015/2016 HIES. These standards, were designed to feed high-quality data to HIES data end users for:
- deriving expenditure weights and other useful data for the revision of the CPI
- supplementing the data available for use in compiling official estimates of various components in the System of NA
- supplementing the data available for production of the balance of payments
- gathering information on poverty lines and the incidence of poverty in Cook Islands
The data allow for the production of useful indicators and information on the industries covered in the survey, including providing data to inform indicators under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This report, the above listed outputs, and additional thematic analyses, collectively provide information to assist with multisector planning and policy formation.
The 2015/2016 HIES was conducted to update the 2006 HIES data and aimed at estimating the total amount each HH spent and earned over the past 12 months at the national and island group level (total expenditure and income).
