The proportion of households in LSMs one to three has declined from 36% in 2003 to 20% in 2009. (AMPS – various years. LSM stands for Living Standards Measure and is a frequently used basis to segment the consumer market in South Africa)
This week’s theme: Households, Houses and Homes
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Is this because of unemployment increasing or an improvement in living standards?
Same comment is this because more people are poorer or richer
Graham, Liz – LSM one to three are the poorest households. We should have made this clearer.
I should think it means there are less people in the lower segment, which could either mean that this group of people are getting more exposed to, and can now easily acquire certain items in the households that help them rank better in ‘living standards’; OR it could mean that there’s been a significant capital injection in the lives of people in this group, increasing their ABILITY TO BUY items used to categorise them accordingly. It would be intereting to see if their category will change if we were to measure their FSM – Financial Standards Measure.
Ta.
Is this because the definitions used in LSM levels are outdated? Have these been linked to the government or statssa’s definitions of poor living standards?