User Guide for the Survey of Household Spending, 2001

This guide presents information of interest to users of data from the Survey of Household Spending. Data are collected via paper questionnaires and personal interviews conducted in January, February and March after the reference year. Information is gathered about the spending habits, dwelling characteristics and household equipment of Canadian households during the reference year. The survey covers private households in the 10 provinces and the 3 territories. (The territories are surveyed every second year, starting in 2001.) This guide includes definitions of survey terms and variables, as well as descriptions of survey methodology and data quality. There is also a section describing the various statistics that can be created using expenditure data (e.g., budget share, market share and aggregates).