Percent of household consumption spent on food and beverages (households living on less than $2.97 per person per day)

Calculation

Expenditure on food divided by total expenditure, multiplied by 100 (restricted to households below $2.97/capita/day).

Definition

Proportion of household expenditure that is spent on food and beverages among households that report an income of less than $2.97 per person per day (in PPP$ terms). Household expenditure is a proxy for household income. $2.97 is the threshold for the lowest consumption segment in the World Bank Global Consumption Database, defined as falling below the 50th percentile of the global distribution of income per capita. Data are obtained from nationally representative household expenditure or consumption surveys.

Relevance

Low-income households within countries are likely to spend a larger percentage of their income on food and beverages compared to higher-income households. This makes them more vulnerable to income or price shocks, which may lead to reductions in the quality or quantity of food consumed.