Fifth Integrated Household Survey 2019-2020

This is the fifth report of a series of the integrated household surveys which was conducted by the National Statistical Office. Through the Integrated Household Survey Program, the NSO conducts Integrated Household Survey every three years. The first such survey was conducted in 1990 and was referred to as the Household Expenditure and Small Scale Economic Activities (HESSEA). This was followed by the 1997/98 Integrated

Household Survey which is commonly referred to as IHS1. The second was conducted in 2004/05 and is referred to as IHS2. The Third Integrated Household Survey was conducted in 2010/11 and is referred to as IHS3. The fourth Integrated Household Survey was conducted in 2016/17 and is referred to as IHS4. The current survey was conducted over the period April 2019 to March 2020 and is being referred to as IHS5.

The main objective of the survey is to provide and update information on various aspects of welfare and socio-economic status of the population of Malawi and are presented at various levels such as national; urban-rural; region and districts as well as disaggregated by sex.

This is a detailed survey that collects information on consumption patterns of households both in terms of food and non-food over a period of one year. It enables further analysis of the survey results to produce poverty profile of the country which feeds into the programming and evaluation of the country’s medium development framework, the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS III). Specifically, the survey collected information on expenditure, consumption demographic characteristics, health, education, labour force participation, credit and loan, household enterprises, agriculture, housing infrastructure and asset ownership, food security and mortality indicators.