The given pie charts compare the portion of families spending on four different essential goods in China in 1995 and 2011. The data is measured in percentage of household budget.
Overall, food accounted for the largest share of household budgets in both years, while medicine consistently had the smallest proportion. Additionally, the country experienced only moderate changes in spending patterns over the given period.
To begin with, it is clear that food accounted for the largest proportion of all categories, representing approximately 68% of the total in 1995 and 59% in 2011. In sharp contrast, medicine contributed the smallest share, standing at only 4%in 1995 and 11% in 2011. Apart from these extremes, meanwhile, other aspects such as clothing and household goods held moderate percentages, ranging from 9% to 19% in 1995 and from 12% to 18% in 2011, indicating their middle position in the overall ranking. Furthermore, the combined shares of clothing and household goods (28% in 1995 and 30% in 2011) were still lower than those of the dominant category, highlighting a significant disparity in distribution. Another thing to note is that clothing and medicine were relatively similar in 2011 (12% and 11% respectively), creating only a small gap between them. Furthermore, some categories reflected a consistent trend for example, household goods remained almost unchanged (19% to 18%) suggesting an overall stable pattern in this group. Overall, the first part of the data clearly illustrates how the highest and lowest categories differ significantly from the rest.
Turning to the remaining details, it can be seen that some other sectors such as clothing and household goods contributed significantly (9% to 12% and 19% to 18% respectively) to the overall figures. It is clearly seen that while clothing recorded a slight increase of 3 percentage points over the period, household goods saw a minimal decline of 1 percentage point. Furthermore, some sectors showed almost identical figures in 2011, such as medicine and clothing, which both exhibited moderate shares after experiencing growth. In some cases, certain segments such as household goods occupied a mid-level share (around 18-19%), playing neither a dominant nor a negligible role. Overall, although food commanded the largest share in both years, the gap between categories narrowed slightly over the period.