The 19th series of the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) this 2021 uses, for the first time, a technology-enabled platform to have a more efficient data collection system in line with the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s rapid pace of change (velocity), scope, and broad impacts. The Computer Aided Personal Interviewing (CAPI) system replaces the traditional Paper and Pencil Interviewing (PAPI) used in previous survey rounds of the FIES. In using the CAPI system, there is no need for manual encoding of data obtained through paper questionnaires; easier facilitation of data cleaning; and certain consistency checks, skipping patterns, as well as error detection are already embedded. These features serve as safeguard to data quality and significantly reduce the survey’s timetable of operations.

Four systems were developed for the 2021 FIES, namely:

1. Management Information System (MIS) for assigning device, personnel, and workload; and monitoring dashboard on the status of data collection and processing;
2. CAPI Application or Household Application for interviewing sample households and recording answers given by the respondent;
3. Supervisor’s Application for re-interviewing selected sample households during the spot checking, recording of incident reports and observation, and uploading accomplishment reports; and
4. Data Processing System (DPS) for machine processing specifically for completeness checking of the sample households, ID validation, and data consistency and cleaning.

“The conduct of the 2021 FIES uses 100% CAPI system with around 6,500 tablets for the data collectors and supervisors nationwide. It will capture the changes in income, and expenditure, particularly food and non-food consumption patterns of families due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.” said Undersecretary Mapa.

As we shift to digital surveys, the Philippine Statistics Authority is keen on introducing improvements to the FIES to be more responsive to the demand for and in keeping our commitment to provide timely, accurate, and relevant statistics that are useful in the formulation of policies, implementation of targeted intervention programs, and in monitoring their impacts to beneficiaries. The results of the 2021 FIES Visit 1 will also provide inputs to the estimation of the 2021 First Semester Poverty Statistics, while the results of the 2021 FIES Visit 2 will provide input to the estimation of the 2021 Full Year Poverty Statistics.

The 2021 FIES Visit 1 will run from 08  to 31 July 2021, while 2021 FIES Visit 2 will run from 08 to 31 January 2022. For more information, visit www.psa.gov.ph.

-Social Sector Statistics Service, Sectoral Statistics Office