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The EU harmonisation of the 

Household Budget Surveys

State of play and future developments
The Household Budget Surveys at 

National level

 A household survey aiming at collecting 

detailed household consumption expenditures 

on different kinds of goods and services 

(COICOP categories) over a specified period 

of time (generally two weeks)

 Conducted on a regular basis in all the 

European countries (annual/every five years)

 Main purpose: provide the weights for the 

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

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The Household Budget Surveys at 

European level

 In 1989, it was decided that national HBS data 

would be collected by Eurostat approximately 

on a five-year basis

 Last HBS reference years: 1988, 1994, 1999, 

2005, 2010 (forthcoming)

 The EU data collection is run under a 

« gentlemen‟s agreement »: no EU regulation 

exists, but only recommendations for 

harmonisation

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The EU data collection: main steps
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The HBS target indicators

1. Consumption expenditure of private

households
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2. Structure of mean consumption

expenditure
3. Household characteristics
The 2005 HBS round of data 

collection

 Took place over the period 2007-2008

 Geographical scope: 30 countries (all EU-27 

countries + Croatia, Norway and Former 

Republic of Macedonia)

 Aggregated tables and/or micro-data files 

sent by the countries to Eurostat

 A first batch of HBS indicators released in 

April 2008 on Eurostat‟s website

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Accuracy: sample sizes

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Country HBS 2005 SILC 2005

LU 3202 3622

MT 2586 3459

NL 1570 9562

NO 3376 5996

PL 34767 16395

PT 10403 4615

RO 33066 -

SK 4710 5414

SI 3725 8287

ES 8881 13027

SE 2079 6133

UK 6785 10826

EU-15 151329 131856

EU-25 226922 192930

EU-27 262858 192930

NMS-10 75593 61074

Country HBS 2005 SILC 2005

AT 8400 5148

BE 3550 5166

BG 2870 -

HR 2727 -

CY 2990 3746

CZ 2965 4351

DK 2449 5957

EE 3432 4208

FI 4007 11229

FR 10240 9775

DE 52217 13111

GR 6555 5568

HU 9058 6927

IE 6884 6085

IT 24107 22032

LV 3774 3846

LT 7586 4441
 The sample sizes range from 1570 (NL) to 

52217 households (DE) 

 Substitutions have been allowed by certain 

countries (BG, GR, ES, HU and IT) in order to 

increase the sample size

 However, the sample sizes may happen to 

vary drastically from one country to another 

Problem of comparability across the countries 

(see next)

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Accuracy: coefficients of variation (%)

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COUNTRY CP00 CP01 CP02 CP03 CP04 CP05 CP06 CP07 CP08 CP09 CP10 CP11 CP12

AT 2,2 2,0 2,7 3,0 2,9 4,7 4,4 4,2 2,1 3,1 1,7 3,5 3,8

BE 3,1 2,9 5,9 6,5 2,5 8,0 6,2 9,5 4,4 5,2 20,0 5,9 7,8

BG 2,0 1,7 5,0 5,2 2,3 5,9 4,4 7,6 3,8 6,0 27,8 6,6 5,2

CY 2,5 2,2 3,2 3,6 2,8 4,3 4,4 5,4 3,1 4,1 4,2 4,0 3,5

DE 0,7 0,7 1,5 1,0 0,8 2,2 2,7 2,3 1,0 1,2 2,8 1,4 1,1

DK 4,0 4,2 6,9 8,4 3,9 7,2 13,2 8,9 5,5 6,4 17,4 6,8 5,2

EE 4,5 3,9 9,7 8,3 4,0 18,6 7,4 14,7 5,2 9,3 33,4 10,8 8,6

ES 1,9 1,9 3,3 2,6 2,1 3,6 4,6 4,8 2,3 3,1 8,0 3,1 2,7

FI 2,6 2,4 5,9 7,7 2,5 4,9 5,5 5,4 3,5 5,4 19,5 5,0 3,3

FR 1,2 1,4 3,8 2,8 1,0 3,5 5,1 3,3 2,2 2,9 13,6 4,0 2,4

GR 1,9 1,6 2,3 2,9 1,7 4,4 3,6 4,4 2,3 4,2 1,9 2,8 3,5

HR 2,6 2,5 5,2 5,3 2,8 5,9 8,7 7,8 3,9 5,3 18,7 7,2 4,6

HU 1,9 1,8 2,5 2,8 1,8 3,2 2,6 3,0 2,2 2,9 2,2 2,3 3,1

IE 1,8 1,5 3,4 3,9 1,9 7,2 6,9 3,7 2,3 2,8 11,2 4,6 3,0

IT 1,2 1,2 2,4 2,7 1,2 5,1 3,7 3,5 1,4 2,7 9,4 3,9 1,8

LT 2,3 1,6 2,6 3,8 2,5 8,4 4,9 6,2 3,4 7,2 21,6 7,0 5,8

LU 2,0 2,4 6,6 4,3 2,1 7,2 5,4 4,7 3,0 3,4 23,8 3,7 3,4

LV 3,9 3,3 6,9 7,3 3,2 7,7 7,2 8,4 4,8 6,9 12,9 8,9 7,3

NL 3,5 4,1 8,6 6,5 3,5 8,5 8,1 6,9 4,8 5,2 12,9 6,3 4,0

NO 2,4 1,9 4,2 4,4 3,2 5,1 6,4 5,5 4,4 4,6 2,6 5,0 4,9

PL 1,2 0,8 2,0 2,9 1,0 3,1 2,0 4,9 1,4 2,9 5,5 5,3 2,5

PT 2,0 2,0 4,5 4,7 2,4 5,3 4,7 5,7 2,9 4,5 12,3 3,9 3,7

RO 1,3 0,9 1,8 2,7 1,8 5,2 3,8 8,7 2,0 4,3 11,2 8,0 3,7

SE 2,7 2,4 7,8 7,9 3,0 8,7 16,4 6,7 3,9 5,7 61,1 7,1 7,6

SI 2,4 2,2 4,7 4,3 1,8 5,0 5,7 6,6 2,6 6,0 10,9 12,2 3,1

SK 2,7 1,6 3,7 4,4 2,6 8,5 5,1 20,6 3,2 7,1 23,3 4,2 7,7

UK 1,9 1,9 3,8 4,5 1,6 6,6 15,2 4,3 2,9 3,9 18,6 3,3 4,2
 The relative accuracy for the total mean 

expenditure (CP00) appears to be acceptable 

in most of the countries in that, except for 

Estonia, it lies below 4%. For Estonia, we got a 

relative confidence interval of 4.5%

 On the other hand, it seems that the level of 

accuracy is going down when considering twodigit COICOPs, especially those for which the 

expenditure distribution should be strongly 

skewed, like Health (CP06), Transport (CP07) 

or Education (CP10) 

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Accuracy: response rates

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AT 42

BE 6

BG 65

HR 71

CY 89

DK 55

EE 49

FI 53

FR 57

GR 60

HU 50

IT 75

LV 52

LT 70

LU 18

NO 52

PL 55

PT 62

RO 90

SK 75

SI 74

ES 65

SE 52

UK 57
 The response rates range from 6% (BE) to 90% 

(RO). In fact, the HBS puts a heavy burden on the 

households (keeping diaries)

 Such a high level of nonresponse may hamper 

the accuracy of the data (nonresponse bias) as 

well as the comparability between the countries

 In order to tackle the nonresponse issue, in 2010 

two Task Forces have been organised at Eurostat 

level on Dealing with nonresponse (3rd March) 

and Preventing nonresponse (4th March) 

Recommendations were made on this topic

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 Comparability issues in the HBS 

methodology

1. The achieved sample sizes in the HBS 

countries

2. The non provision of Imputed Rent by 

certain countries (CZ, MT, RO, IE and UK)

3. The use of non-random sample selections 

by certain countries (CZ and DE)

Comparability: various issues under

consideration
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4. The treatment of unit non-response

5. The concept of household’s reference 

person (self-assessment/main income 

earner)

6. The recording of health and education 

expenditures
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 Comparability issues in the structure of the 

HBS data files

1. Different HBS reference years

2. The provision of aggregated tables by certain 

countries (CZ, IT, PL, PT and MT) rather than 

micro-data files

3. No micro-information available at individual 

level

4. The scaling of the weights
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 HBS metadata reporting

 Core Variables
For more information:

– Eurostat; “Household Budget Surveys in the EU: 

Methodology and Recommendations for 

Harmonisation”; Luxembourg, 2003

– Eurostat; “Household Budget Surveys in the 

Candidate Countries. Methodological analysis, 2003”; 

Luxembourg, 2004

– Eurostat; “Data transmission for the HBS round of the 

reference year 2005”

– Eurostat; “Quality Report of the „Household Budget 

Surveys‟ 2005”

These documents have been published only 

electronically on the internet site of Eurostat.

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Summary and way forward

 The HBS collection at EU level has provided a 

valuable data source on household living conditions

 Quality issues remain, mostly comparability issues, 

but they are not that different from the issues faced 

by EU Statistics under Regulation (SILC, LFS)

 Next steps:

– 2010 round of data collection coming soon

– Task Forces on preventing/dealing with nonresponse: 

further tests to be made on Calmar2

– Regulation to grant access to microdata to researchers

– HBS « revisited » (Stiglitz report, absolute poverty)

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