The Northern Ireland Family Expenditure Survey (NIFES) was conducted in Northern Ireland from 1967-1998, and was the counterpart to the Family Expenditure Survey (FES), which was conducted annually in Great Britain from 1957-2001 (see under GN 33057). The FES/NIFES provided reliable data on expenditure and income in relation to household characteristics. The results of the survey show how expenditure patterns of different kinds of households vary, and the extent to which individual members of a household contribute to the household income. Although originally commissioned to provide expenditure details for the calculation of weights for the Retail Price Index, the FES/NIFES collected much additional information was also collected on the characteristics of co-operating households and the incomes of their members. It thus became a multi-purpose survey, and provided a unique fund of important economic and social data. From 1968 the Great Britain FES incorporated a sample drawn from the NIFES to become the UK FES. The FES was replaced in 2001 by a new survey series, the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS) (see under GN 33334), covering the whole of the UK. The EFS is an amalgamation of the previous National Food Survey (NFS) (see under GN 33071) and UK FES.