Page 204 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 7

CPS2062 Nurul Fatihah M. et al.

Household consumption expenditure patterns in
Malaysia
Nurul Fatihah Mohamad Ariffin, Siti Nor Amalina Ghazali, Siti Rohani Anuar
Department of Statistics Malaysia

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to show the patterns of household consumption
expenditure amongst Malaysians. The definition of household expenditure
used in this survey is based on the concepts and guidelines by United Nations
as published in A System of National Accounts, 2008 and Framework for
Statistics on the Distribution of Household Income, Consumption and Wealth,
2013 published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD). Only 12 out of 13 household expenditure items were
taken into account for this study, i.e. household consumption expenditure.
Data collected were extracted from the Household Expenditure Survey 2016
report published by Department of Statistics Malaysia. A graph of composition
of household consumption expenditure shows which expenditure items have
the highest spending by household. The compounded annual growth rate
(CAGR) of the mean monthly household consumption expenditure is also
calculated.

Keywords
Household Expenditure Survey; Compounded Annual Growth Rate;
Department of Statistics Malaysia

1. Introduction
The phrase ‘cash is king’ is relevant in a world where almost everything is
doable if you have the money. This is why getting a job to get income doesn’t
only apply to adults but students too to survive in the ever-changing world
where everything has its price. How much the people of a country spend
contributes to the determination of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the
country.
GDP is one of the measures of economic growth of a country in the sense
of monetary expenditure (Divya K. H. & Devi V. R., 2014). There are three ways
of calculating GDP of a country and one of them is through calculated
expenditure, of which one of its components is the household expenditure
(Landefeld J. S., Seskin E. P. & Fraumeni B. M., 2008).
Household refers to a group of people whether related or unrelated who
usually live together in a living quarters and make provisions (expenses) for

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