I. Main content of this chapter
Data in this chapter show the conditions of people's livelihood in China, consis ting of two part s on the life of urban residents
and of rural residents respect ively.

II. Source of dat a on the livelihood of urban res idents
Data on the livelihood of the urban residents in this chapter come from the data collected through sample survey s on t he
urban households conducted by the Urban Socio-economic Survey Organization, NBS. The main content of the survey includes
the population in the household and it s composit ion, the cash income and expenditure of the household, the quantity of,
and the expenditure on major commodities purchased, t he emp loyment of the household members, the housing condition
and the posses sion of the durable consumer goods.

III. Methodology for urban household survey
The survey on the urban households is organized by the Urban Socio-economic Survey Organization, NBS. The urban socio-
economic survey organizat ions of the p rovinces, aut onomous regions and municipalities direct ly under the central
government as well as the urban socio-economic survey organizations of the selected cities and counties collect t he data in
accordance wit h t he survey scheme stipulated by NBS and report them t o the higher organiz ation.

Until 2001, the survey covered only non-agricultural households. St arting from 2002, it covers all households in urban areas
and county towns.

The survey on t he urban households is conducted in such a way that households selected by sampling method keep
accounts for successive three years and be interviewed by the enumerators. By a rotation samp ling scheme, one third of the
old sample households should be rep laced by t he new samp le households every y ear. The respondent hous eholds are s
elected by t he twostage stratified systematic random s ampling scheme.

At the first stage, the cities and counties are firstly classified into 5 categories by their populat ion siz e, namely the
particularly large cities, large cities, medium-sized cities, small cities and counties . Secondly, they are grouped into the 6
adminis trative regions (northeastern region, north region, east ern region, central region, northwestern region and southwes
tern region). In each administrative region, the cities and counties are arranged in the order of the average wages of t heir s
taff and workers in the urban areas. Thirdly, the number of t he staff and workers of the cit ies are accumulated and the
samp le cities or counties are selected by a systematic s ampling scheme; the sampling int erval is one million staff and
workers.

At the second s tage, the sample households are selected by the multi-stage and two-phase sampling scheme. In the
particularly large and large cities, the first p hase sample is selected by three-st age sampling method: Firstly, the sample
sub-districts are selected; Secondly, t he samp le res idents committ ees are selected from the sample sub-districts; Thirdly,
the sample households are selected from the samp le residents committees. In the medium-sized and small cities and
counties, the first phase sample is selected by two-stage sampling method: Firstly, the sample residents commit tees are
directly selected; Secondly, the sample hous eholds are selected from the samp le residents committ ees. The second phas e
sample is composed of the sample households which are surveyed in a regular way and t hese households are selected with
strat ified sampling method from the households in the first phase s ample.

In t otal, 25,000 households in 226 cities and counties are selected by the National Bureau of Statistics in the above
-mentioned approach. Additional local s amples are selected by local statistical offices by the same samp le design, making t
he total sample size to reach 40,000 households.

IV. Source of dat a on the livelihood of rural res idents
Data on the livelihood of the rural resident s come from the data collect ed through the s ample survey on t he rural hous
eholds, which is organized by the Rural Socio-economic Survey Organization, NBS. The main content of the survey includes
the bas ic condition of the rural hous eholds, the per capita total income and net income, the expenditure for the residential
consumption, t he consumption of major consumer goods and t he quantity of durable consumer goods owned.

V. Met hodology for urban household survey
The sample survey on the rural households is conducted by selecting sample villages first and then selecting households in
the selected villages in each province, with all rural households in the province as the populat ion. A combinat ion of various
sampling ap proaches are used to identify a total of 68,000 households selected from 7,100 villages throughout the whole
country.

It is required that the sampling error should not exceed to ± 0.3%, with confidence of probabilit y as 95%. In order to ensure
the accuracy of the data of the survey on t he rural households, two accounts are designed for the respondent hous eholds
by the Rural Socio-economic Survey Organization, NBS, the cash account and the account on goods in kind. Nearly 10 thous
and assistant enumerators have been invited to help the households to keep good account s and check and t abulate the
data of t he survey.

In order to reduce the burden of the respondent households and solve the problem of aging samples to make the sample
more representat ive of the p opulat ion and able to reflect t he rural social and economic situation more accurately and
timely, a rotation sampling scheme is implemented by the Rural Socio-economic Survey Organization, NBS in selecting the

rural sample households, with the cycle of complete rotation being 5 years.