How can the latest Survey of Living Conditions in Suriname help with the pursuit of development

The 2022 Survey of Living Conditions

In 2022, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) collected data for a new nationally representative household survey – the Survey of Living Conditions. Over a 12-month period, a questionnaire was administered to approximately two thousand, five hundred Surinamese households. The questionnaire queried many aspects of households’ current situation, such as health, early childhood development, labor supply, housing, migration, consumption patterns, income and expenditure, among others.

 

How was the data analyzed and what does it show?

The IDB and the World Bank jointly undertook initial data analysis, focused on poverty and inequality. To estimate poverty rates, research teams looked at the value of total daily real consumption and classified people as poor if this value lies below a certain threshold – the poverty line.

Estimating the total value of real consumption is challenging. The questionnaire asked households about a wide range of consumption and expenditures on food, non-food (think of clothing, energy, ICT and transportation), and housing.  It is not easy to condense this extensive and complex information for thousands of households. To see why, consider for instance food consumption. Households consume many different types of food. Some of this food is bought in shops, some of it is consumed in restaurants, and some of it may be produced by households themselves. And, to add to the complexity, due to high inflation a household had to pay SRD 15 in December 2022 for the same basket of goods that cost SRD 10 in January of 2022. Fortunately, best practices have been developed over the years in countries around the world to deal with these challenges. Read more…