The bar chart provides details of the average expanditure on a series of eight items by families in a given country in the years 1968 and 2018.
Overview, the way households allocated their income changed significantly over the period. While expenditure on food halved, spending on leisure , housing , and transport increased substantially. In contrast , the remaining four categories accounted for relatively small propotions of total spending.
In 1968 , families spent a little over a third of their weekly income on food , making it by far largest spending category . Housing and clothing each accounted for 10% and together with food , these three categories made up more than half of total expanditure , whereas the remaining five items surveyed each ranged between 6% and 8%.
Fifty years later , although food still accounted for 17% of household spending,this figure halved from 1968 . Similarly , spending on clothing and footwear dropped from 10% to 5% . In contrast , leisure , which initially represented only 8% of spending , almost tripled to 22% , becoming the largest spending item. Both housing and transport also saw notable increases , rising from 10% to 19% and from 7% to 14% respectively.
As for the remaining items , spending on houshold goods remained unchanged at 7% , while expenditure on both personal goods and fuel and power saw slight declines, with each registering 4% in 2018.