Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

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EXPLANATORY NOTES


INTRODUCTION

1 This publication presents selected findings from the 2003-04 Household Expenditure Survey (HES) using the Section of State (SOS) structure (see paragraphs 4-7), and is the third publication in a series with a focus on rural and regional Australia.

2 These Explanatory Notes outline general information on the scope and coverage of the HES and the SOS structure. For more details on the HES refer to Household Expenditure Survey, Australia: Summary of Results (cat. no. 6530.0). For more details on the SOS structure, refer to the Australian Standard Geographical Classification, Volume 1, 2001 (cat. no. 1261.0).


REFERENCE PERIOD

3 The 2003-04 HES commenced field enumeration throughout Australia in July 2003. Field enumeration was completed in June 2004. Previous Household Expenditure Surveys were conducted in 1974-75, 1975-76, 1984, 1988-89, 1993-94 and 1998-99.


STATISTICAL GEOGRAPHY

4 The Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) is used by the ABS for the collection and dissemination of geographically classified statistics and its use enables comparability across datasets. The ASGC is an essential reference to understanding and interpreting the geographical context of statistics published by, not only the ABS, but also state and other commonwealth agencies.

5 This publication presents data based on the SOS structure. This structure uses population counts from the latest Census of Population and Housing to class Census Collection Districts as urban or rural. As the SOS structure is defined only in Census years, 2003-04 HES data was concorded to the 2001 Section of State areas.

6 The SOS structure contains the following categories:

• the cost of acquiring goods and services – the cost of those goods and services acquired during the reference period regardless of whether the household paid for or consumed them during the period

• the cost of goods and services used for private purposes – costs associated with investments and business were excluded from estimates of expenditure

• net or out-of-pocket expenditure – refunds and reimbursements (such as Medicare refunds, factory rebates, trade-ins and reimbursements from employers) were deducted from expenditure

• expenditure during and prior to the 2003-04 financial year – most types of expenditure relate to purchases recorded in a fortnightly diary at some point within the 2003-04 financial year but less frequent and often large expenditures were collected on a 'recall' basis: for those items, households were asked to recall expenditures over a period which may have extended back before 2003-04, ranging from the last payment made (e.g. for utilities bills) to any purchase made in the last three years (e.g. for house purchases)

• some expenditure in-kind – items provided free or at a reduced cost by employers to employees for their own private use or withdrawn from own business for household consumption are regarded as expenditure in-kind; only incidental items of expenditure in-kind such as food and motor vehicle fuel reported in the diaries have been included in aggregate expenditure, averaging $1.30 per week per household; however other expenditure in-kind items such as provision of vehicles, housing and assistance with telephone calls were collected and are available separately if required.