Large gap in household incomes between Sri Lanka’s urban, rural and estate sectors

Oct 22, Colombo: According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey – 2016 released by the Department of Census and Statistics recently, the mean monthly income of a household in Sri Lanka for 2016 is Rs. 62,237, which has shown an increase of 35.7% from the last survey in 2012/13.

In real terms however, the mean monthly household income has increased only by 15.8% when adjusted against the inflationary effect, on the basis of the National Consumer Price Index.

However, there is a large gap in Household income between urban, rural and estate sectors.

Sector-wise, the estimated mean household incomes for Urban, Rural and Estate sectors have been estimated as Rs. 88,692, Rs. 58,137 and Rs. 34,804 respectively.

The estimated household per capita income for 2016 in Sri Lanka has been recorded as Rs. 16,377 per month. In 2012/13 it was Rs. 11,819 and has increased by 39% by 2016.

Among the provinces, eight years after the war ended, the conflict-affected Northern and Eastern provinces record the lowest Household Incomes.

The Mean household income in Northern Province was Rs. 46,081 and Eastern Province recorded an income of Rs. 43,168. In the South Sabaragamuwa Province was the poorest with a household income of Rs. 49,057.

The Department of Census and Statistics has been conducting the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), once in every three years and the current survey conducted in 2016 is the 9th in this series.

A sample of 25,000 households was selected covering the entire country for the survey, while the data collection took place from January 2016 to December 2016.