A new report released by the Statistical Center of Iran has reviewed Iranian urban and rural households’ income and expenditure in the last fiscal year that ended on March 20, 2021.
Iranian households living in urban areas spent an average of 621,392,000 rials ($2,546) in the last Iranian year (March 2020-21), 31% more than in the preceding year.
“Food and tobacco” with 161,094,000 rials or $660 accounted for 26% of total expenditures of urban households, as spending on non-food category stood at 460,298,000 rials or $1,886, accounting for 74% of the total sum.
Flour, meat and cereal accounted for the biggest share of the overall urban households’ expenditures in “food and tobacco” category while housing, fuel and light costs had the lion’s share in the non-food category.
Urban Households
Urban households declared they received an annual average income of 764,746,000 rials ($3,134) last year, which show a 38% rise compared with the previous year.
All in all, urban households’ average income outgrew their average expenditure last year.
Other findings of SCI report about urban households are as follows:
Sources of generating income for urban households were “paid-employment jobs” (31.4%), “self-employment jobs in farming or nonfarm payroll employment” (15.7%) and “miscellaneous sources of income” (52.9%).
The percentage of urban households that owned cars and dishwashers last year remained unchanged compared with the year before at 53.1% and 7.6%, respectively.
This is while the percentage of households using refrigerators and freezers increased from 70.2% to 71.9%, washing machines from 87.1% to 87.3%, and microwave and halogen ovens from 12.3% to 12.4%.
The percentage of those using vacuum cleaners declined from 91.7% to 91.5% and the percentage of urban households owning stoves went down from 99.1% to 98.9% during the period.
Last year, 94.5% of urban households used natural gas for heating.
Urban households residing in Tehran Province recorded the highest annual expenditure with 957,016,000 rials ($3,922) and those living in North Khorasan had the lowest annual expenditure with 351,943,000 rials ($1,442) last year.
The annual average income of Tehran Province’s urban households stood at 1,098,118,000 rials or $4,500 (the highest among Iranian provinces) and that of Sistan-Baluchestan’s households hovered around 478,831,000 rials or $1,962 (the lowest among Iranian provinces) last year.
Rural Households
The average expenditure of rural households last year stood at 340,679,000 rials ($1,396), which registered a 30.5% rise compared with the year before.
“Food and tobacco” costs constituted 40% or 136,442,000 rials ($559) and non-food costs amounted to 60% or 204,237,000 rials ($837) of the total rural families’ expenses.
Flour, cereal and bread accounted for the biggest share of the overall rural households’ expenditures in the “food and tobacco” category, as housing, fuel and light costs had the lion’s share in non-food category.
The average yearly income of rural households was 420,470,000 rials ($1,723) that shows a 41.6% increase compared to the previous year.
Sources of generating income for rural households were paid-employment jobs (32.7%), self-employment jobs in farming or nonfarm payroll employment (29.7%) and miscellaneous sources of income (37.5%).
Other findings of the SCI report about rural households are as follows:
The percentage of rural households with cars improved from 32.7% in the fiscal 2019-20 to 34.1% in the fiscal 2020-21, those using refrigerators and freezers increased from 50.4% to 52.7%, vacuum cleaners from 65.9% to 67.5% and washing machines from 56.5% to 58.1%.
Meanwhile, the percentage of households using stoves decreased from 98.4% to 98.3%, microwave and halogen ovens from 2.3% to 1.6% and dishwashers from 0.5% to 0.4%.
Last year, 75.2% of rural households used natural gas for heating and 13.3% used kerosene for heating.
Rural households residing in Alborz Province recorded the highest annual expenditure with 566,427,000 rials ($2,321) and those living in Sistan-Baluchestan had the lowest annual expenditure with 180,395,000 rials ($739) last year.
The annual income of Alborz Province’s rural households stood at 676,897,000 rials or $2,774 (the highest among Iranian provinces) and that of Sistan-Baluchestan’s households hovered around 181,091,000 rials or $742 (the lowest among Iranian provinces) last year.
The latest SCI report is based on a survey of 19,306 urban households and 18,251 rural households.
SCI has put average annual inflation for urban and rural areas in the fiscal 2020-21 at 36.2% and 37.7%, respectively.
