Household Income

Decile (decile group)

A decile group is one tenth of all households arranged by their households incomes from minimum to maximum. The first decile group is the first one-tenth (i.e. 10% of all household with lowest incomes). The last decile is the one-tenth of the households with the highest incomes. Not all households are consistently in the same decile group from one year to the next.

Equivalence Scales

Equivalence scales take into account economies of scale within the household, and adjust for household size so that households of different sizes and compositions are comparable. There are different scales used by different countries and international organisations.

Gini Coefficient

A summary measure of income inequality. It is equal to zero in the case of total income equality and one in the case of total inequality. The more unequal the income distribution, the larger the value of the Gini coefficient.

Government Transfers

Government Transfers are unrequited assistance/benefits provided by the Government to households or individuals and can be in cash or in-kind. Based on international standards and guidelines, capital housing transfers (e.g. CPF Housing Grant) that are large, lump sum and one-off payments have an effect beyond the year as well as an investment impact, and hence not within the scope of household income statistics.

Government Taxes

Government Taxes are compulsory, unrequited payments made by households or individuals to the Government in cash or in-kind.

Household Employment Income

Refers to the sum of income received by employed members of the household from employment and business excluding the income of live-in domestic workers. Monthly household employment income includes one-twelfth of the annual bonus. Data on household employment income refer to household employment income before accounting for Government transfers and taxes, unless stated otherwise.

Household Employment Income Per Household Member

Refers to the employment household income divided by the total number of members in the household.

Household reference person

The household reference person may refer to the oldest member, the main income earner, the owner-occupier of the house, the person who manages the affairs of the household, or the person who supplied the information pertaining to other members.

Prior to Census of Population 2020, survey respondents were asked to identify the 'head of household'. The identified person is used as the reference person to determine relationships between household members. In Census of Population 2020, the term 'head of household' has been replaced with 'household reference person'.

Median Household Income

Refers to the household income in the middle of the income distribution, i.e. half of the households have higher income than the median household income and half have lower income than the median household income.

Modified OECD Scale

The modified OECD scale assigns the first adult in the household a weight of 1 point, and each additional adult a weight of 0.5 points and each child a weight of 0.3 points. The equivalised household income is derived by dividing the total household income by the sum of the points allocated to the household members.

Number of Working/Employed Persons in Household

The number of working/employed persons in the household includes members of the same household who were working/employed during the survey reference period. Domestic workers in the household are excluded.

Percentile Ratio

A measure of the spread of incomes across the population. P90 refers to the income level at the 90^th percentile. P10 refers to the income level at the 10^th percentile.

Resident Employed Households

Refers to households where the household reference person is a Singapore citizen or permanent resident and with at least one employed person. A household refers to (i) a group of two or more persons living together in the same house and sharing common food or other essential arrangements for living; or (ii) a person living alone or a person living with others but having his own food or other essential arrangements for living. Although persons may be living in the same house, they may not be members of the same household.

Source of data

The data are based on the sample of households surveyed in the June Comprehensive Labour Force Surveys conducted by the Ministry of Manpower every year, except for 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2020 which are based on the Censuses of Population and the middecade General Household Surveys. The income estimates are based on income as reported by survey respondents and augmented with administrative data. Survey estimates are subject to sampling variability.

Of the 33,000 housing units selected in the sample for the June Comprehensive Labour Force Survey 2024, some 1,506 households were excluded from the survey as they were unoccupied, non-residential or demolished. A total of 27,374 households responded to the survey, achieving an overall response rate of 86.9%.

Square Root Scale

Based on the square root scale, individuals are ranked by their household income on a 'per equivalised member basis', which is derived by dividing household income by the square root of household size.