Issues Concerning the Concept of the Term “Household Head” in the Family Income and Expenditure Survey Published by the Statistics Bureau of the Management and Coordination Agency

ITO Setsu, ISHIRO Syunko

doi:10.11428/jhej1987.40.663

The Family Income and Expenditure Survey by the Statistics Bureau of Japan was analyzed from the viewpoint of Home Economics, and definite demerits were apparent from the use of the term “household head.” Opinions were reviewed from the U.N. and the U.S.A. concerning this term, and methods for improving the Japanese survey are proposed to yield statistics that could more accurately reflect greater economic sharing between the husbands and wives in households more exactly.<BR>In Japan's current survey, earners in worker's households are classified into “household head, ” “wife” and “other household members.” “Household head” is defined as “a person who earns the major part of the family income, ” so the opposite term to “household head” must be its “spouse” regardless of sex, although “wife” is used in the survey. It is clear that this makes it difficult to correctly economic sharing between the husbands and wives in households.<BR>In the U.N. and the U.S.A., the term “household head” has been criticized since the 1970s. The U.S.A., among others, eliminated the term “head” from all of its censuses and CES at the beginning of the 1980s, CES adopting the term “reference person.” <BR>We propose the term “household representative” and suggest subdividing it into “husband, ” “wife” and “other household members” to more precisely grasp the degree of economic sharing between the husbands and wives in households.

Issues Concerning the Concept of the Term “Household Head” in the Family Income and Expenditure Survey Published by the Statistics Bureau of the Management and Coordination Agency

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