1. Proposal for granting access to HOUSEHOLD BUDGET SURVEYS (HBS)
Working Group on
Statistical Confidentiality
Luxembourg, October 2009
Item 5.4 of the agenda
Peter Paul Borg
Unit F3 – Living Conditions and Social Protection Statistics

2. Household Budget Surveys
1. General overview
2. Uses and users at national and EU levels
3. Survey timing and frequency
4. Survey structure
5. Content
6. Main household variables collected at EU level
7. Quality reports
8. Conclusion

3. 1. General overview
National sample surveys of private households carried out regularly under the responsibility of NSIs
Cover information on household consumption expenditures on goods and services, in great detail and also information on income, possession of consumer durable goods and cars; basic information on housing and many demographic and socio- economic characteristics
No EU regulation
Consequence: Considerable freedom for each Member State to decide the objectives, methodology, programming of resource assignment

4. 2. Uses and users at national and EU levels
National level:
Consumer Prices Indices (CPI)
National Account
Studies on living conditions
EU level:
Consumer protection: support to the political management of the area for DG SANCO
Poverty and social exclusion: complementary information to elaborate indicators and carry out analysis for DG EMPL
Control information for other statistics
Raw data for research studies (economic, nutritional, social)

5. 3. Survey timing and frequency
Survey launched in most countries between 1950 and 1970
Survey carried out:
Yearly in the majority of EU Member States (BE, BG, CZ, DK, EE, EL, ES, HU, IT, LT, LV, LU, MT, NL, PL, RO, SE, SL, SK, UK)
Every five years in 7 Member States (AT, CY, DE, FR, IE, PT, FI)
Eurostat collect the HBS micro-data approximately every five year rounds 1994, 1999, 2005 with 2010 being the next collection year

6. 4. Survey structure
Data collection involves a combination of (a) one or more interviews and (b) diaries maintained by the households or individuals usually on a daily basis
Common model:
Sample divided into representative sub-samples for interviewing and diary keeping at different times, distributed over the survey year to ensure that the survey is representative in space and time
Income covered in the last interview

7. 5. Content
National HBS surveys very different in terms of frequency, content, structure, sampling
Harmonisation of classification and coding system of essential variables (Data Transmission for the HBS round of the reference year 2005)
Basic harmonised nomenclature used is COICOPHBS 1999 – identical to OECD COICOP up to third level of details (4 digits) but provided an additional level of detail (5 digits)
Ex-post harmonisation of microdata files/aggregated tables carried out by Eurostat

8. 6. Main household variables collected at EU level
Expenditure (COICOP-HBS)
Income
Variables relating to the survey
Characteristics of the reference person
Housing
Durables
Household size and type
Activity and economic situation

9. 7. Quality reports
Each Member State and EUROSTAT is encouraged to produce a quality report covering six dimensions, namely:
Relevance
Accuracy
Timeliness and punctuality
Accessibility and Clarity
Comparability
Coherence

10. 8. Conclusion
Consumption statistics are crucial for studies on Living conditions and Social Protection
Analysis by researchers will feed back into the production process improving the quality and relevance
The High Level Working Group on Statistical Confidentiality is cordially invited to give its approval so that HBS is included in Regulation 831/2002

11. http://epp. eurostat. ec. europa
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