Philippines - Family Income and Expenditure Survey 2012

The 2012 FIES utilized the 2003 Master Sample. As in most household surveys, the 2003 MS made use of an area sample design. For this purpose, the Enumeration Area Reference File (EARF) of the 2000 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) was utilized as sampling frame. The EARF contains the number of households by enumeration area (EA) in each barangay.

This frame was used to form the primary sampling units (PSUs). With consideration of the period for which the 2003 MS will be in use, the PSUs were formed/defined as a barangay or a combination of barangays with at least 500 households.

The 2003 MS considers the 17 regions of the country as the primary strata. Within each region, further stratification was performed using geographic groupings such as provinces, highly urbanized cities (HUCs), and independent component cities (ICCs). Within each of these substrata formed within regions, the PSUs were further stratified, to the extent possible, using the proportion of strong houses (PSTRONG), indicator of engagement in agriculture of the area (AGRI), and a measure of per capita income (PERCAPITA) as stratification factors.

The 2003 MS consists of a sample of 2,835 PSUs. The entire MS was divided into four sub-samples or independent replicates, such as a quarter sample contains one fourth of the total PSUs; a half sample contains one-half of the four sub-samples or equivalent to all PSUs in two replicates.

The final number of sample PSUs for each domain was determined by first classifying PSUs as either self-representing (SR) or non-self-representing (NSR). In addition, to facilitate the selection of sub-samples, the total number of NSR PSUs in each region was adjusted to make it a multiple of 4.

SR PSUs refers to a very large PSU in the region/domain with a selection probability of approximately 1 or higher and is outright included in the MS; it is properly treated as a stratum; also known as certainty PSU. NSR PSUs refers to a regular too small sized PSU in a region/domain; also known as non certainty PSU. The 2003 MS consists of 330 certainty PSUs and 2,505 non-certainty PSUs.

To have some control over the sub-sample size, the PSUs were selected with probability proportional to some estimated measure of size. The size measure refers to the total number of households from the 2000 CPH. Because of the wide variation in PSU sizes, PSUs with selection probabilities greater than 1 were identified and were included in the sample as certainty selections.

At the second stage, enumeration areas (EAs) were selected within sampled PSUs, and at the third stage, housing units were selected within sampled EAs. Generally, all households in sampled housing units were enumerated, except for few cases when the number of households in a housing unit exceeds three. In which case, a sample of three households in a sampled housing unit was selected at random with equal probability.

An EA is defined as an area with discernable boundaries within barangays consisting of about 150 contiguous households. These EAs were identified during the 2000 CPH. A housing unit, on the other hand, is a structurally separate and independent place of abode which, by the way it has been constructed, converted, or arranged, is intended for habitation by a household.

The 2012 FIES involved the interview of a national sample of about 50,000 sample households deemed sufficient to gather data on family income and family expenditure and related information affecting income and expenditure levels and patterns in the Philippines at the national and regional level. The sample households covered in the survey were the same households interviewed in the July 2012 and January 2013 round of the LFS.


The response rate for this survey is 90.1 percent. The response rate is the ratio of the total responding households to the total number of eligible households. Eligible households include households who were completely interviewed, refused to be interviewed or were temporarily away or not at home or on vacation during the survey period.


In the 2003 Master Sample Design, the probability that a household is included in the sample varies across domains/regions. However, the sampling design is epsem within domain (i.e. equal selection probabilities within region). The initial step in the construction of weights is to determine the unit's base weight. This is defined as the inverse of its selection probabilities. The base weight is further adjusted to take into account possible non-response and possibly to make the estimates conform to some known population totals.

The final survey weight assigned to each responding unit is computed as the product of the base weight, the non-response adjustment and the population weighting adjustment (in the case of households as responding unit - the household population weighting adjustment).