PART II. PHILIPPINE SITUATION
5.0. Income
5.1. While per capita GDP are obtained from the national accounts, official statistics on family income, its level and distribution are based on the Family Income and Expenditures Survey (FIES) which is conducted every three years since 1985. Comparative statistics are available for years 1985, 1988, 1991 and 1994. FIES data prior to 1985 are available at the regional/provincial/key city level but may not be directly comparable with 1985 data and onwards. Available statistics which are related to income include: distribution of families by income class; income distribution by family size; income decile distribution (regional only); sources of income; spending pattern by income class; characteristics of the household head; and housing characteristics.
5.2. The average income of families in the urban areas remained to be more than twice that of families in the rural areas. The 1994 estimates yielded a P113,121 average income in urban areas and P53,483 in rural areas, although compared to 1991, those in the rural areas recorded a higher increase of 29.8 percent against the 26.3 percent in the urban areas.
5.3. The income distribution shifted as the income share of families in the first to the ninth decile slightly increased and those in the tenth decile decreased from 37.8 percent in 1991 to 35.5 percent in 1994. Moreover in 1994 the average income of families in the tenth decile was 18.9 times higher than those in the first decile compared to 20.6 times higher in 1991.
5.4. The resulting Gini coefficient was 0.45 in 1994, down by 3.7 percent from 0.468 in 1991. A lower Gini coefficient indicates a movement towards a more equal or less unequal income distribution.
Methodological Issues
5.5. There were reported claims that expenditures may be overestimated (to impress the interviewer) and income underestimated (to avoid taxation problems).
5.6. The sampling design used was based on population and did not have any stratification on income or related indicators. There could have been possible misrepresentations of the extreme ends of the income distribution which are the
