Papua New Guinea Interhousehold Transfers in Urban Papua New Guinea 1982

The 1982–83 study reported here is one of only a handful of studies primarily designed to quantify interhousehold transfers in urban Papua New Guinea. The main alternative sources of quantitative information on transfers are the four large-scale household income and expenditure surveys conducted in 1975–76, 1987–88, 1996 and 2009–10 (see Bureau of Statistics, 1977; Gibson, 1998; World Bank, 2000; and National Statistical Office, n.d.).

This study can be set alongside the large-scale household income and expenditure surveys to provide more fine-grained information on how and why transfers flow and their impact on consumption and poverty. The relevance of the study today is not the kina value of transfers, but the description of transfers and the relationships between transfers and other household and community characteristics.

The study adds to what is known from the large-scale household income and expenditure surveys by focussing on four low-income census units (three settlements and one traditional village in two urban areas) and by including some of the poorest urban households. The field methods were designed to capture transfers in more detail than larger surveys could. Unlike other surveys, the study included meals given and received and overnight hospitality in the definition of transfers. The study also recorded for the donor or recipient of every transfer the relationship to the study household, the birthplace, and place of residence.

The main data collection methods were demographic and economic surveys of all 415 households (2,548 residents) in the four low-income study areas, and two-week income and consumption surveys of a sample of 48 households (295 residents) within those areas.

Although initial findings from the study were issued at the time (Morauta, 1983a and 1984a), the full data and analysis were not published. The purpose of this report is to place a fuller set of data, including data by household for all consumption survey sample households, and a more complete analysis in the public domain.

The analysis of the data in this report mainly follows the original design. However, in two areas, the definition of adequate calorie and protein consumption and the development of poverty lines, the analysis draws on studies since the 1980s, particularly the World Bank poverty assessments (World Bank 2000 and 2004) and the work of Gibson (1998, 2000, 2012, and Gibson et al., 2010).

Version 01: Cleaned, labelled and anonymized version of the Master file.

• Collection start: 1982
• Collection end: 1983