The 1995/1996 Household Income, Expenditure - (PDF, 101 mb ...

II.10
6.33% of HIECS households said that one or more of their memberS presently
works abroad. Of the households who have members working abroad. the
typical number of members employed is 1.07. 80% (745 of 937) of persons
working abroad actually "provide income to the household." For the 677
households willing to answer how much income the household receives from
abroad as remittances. the average figure is 3428.45 £E annually. The
conclusion (without subtracting monies paid to household members outside of
Egypt). is that relatively few workers take the risk of leaving Egypt for a job
abroad. but that the jobs are highly lucrative, at least for the subset who
remit part of their earnings.
ILl Equivalence Scales
In order to adjust the data for household size and sex compositions as
they affect consumption (food consumption) and so standardize the data, we
determine how much each age/sex group contributes to household food
consumption, then allocate that amount to the household given these
characteristics. Empirically. the coefficients of equivalence scales for each
time period data set are used in predicting food. and thereby overall,
consumption. These scales are superior to other international scales for their
higher precision and their relevence to the Egyptian context. The equivalence
scale regression outputs for the 1990/1991 HIECS and the 1995/1996 HIECS
appear in Tables 11.8 and 11.9 respectively.
Turning first to Table II.8, the "Parameter Estimate" column gives the
amount (in £E) of contribution to the dependent variable (total food and
beverage expenditures) which the variable makes. The intercept is the place
where the line of the regression equation passes through the Y-axis;
616.646225 £E is the initial consumption level of food and beverages. "MO_4"
means males from 0-4 years of age. In the 1990/1991 HIECS data, males from
0-4 years of age contributed, on average. per year, 74.368524 £E to household
food and beverages expenditures. Females from 0-4 years of age were
responsible for only 54.435103 £E per year. 5 The parameter estimate for total
expenditures ("EXPTOT") is 0.337246; for every additional Egyptian pound of
total expenditures. 33 piasters were spent on food and beverages, all other
things being equal. As the column "Prob > IT:'' indicates. all of the individual
coefficients are significant at greater than a 99% level of confidence; that is.
it is highly unlikely that any of the coefficients are zero. The "R-square"
value of 0.6842 means that 68.4% of the variation in food and beverages
expenditures is captured by the variables used on the right hand side of the
equation. All of the coefficients are meaningful when one considers the
costliness of staying at home: it makes sense that males older than 60 and
females older than 60 consume more food and beverages than the other
age/sex groups because they are being cared for; it is conceivable that males
20-59 consume about 20 £E less food than males 5-19, but that females 20-59
consume about the same amount of food as females 5-19. Note that females of
prime working age (20-59) consume more than their male cohorts; generally
they remain at home and make the food purchasing decisions. Table 11.9. the
regression results for the 1995/1996 data set. collaborates the same set of
5 The question of the relative importance of this difference of 20 £E will
be revisited in the Chapter 5.