Households

Evidently everyone knows what a family is. But not all the people may be as familiar with the concept of household.

Household is a group of people who live in a common main dwelling (at the same address) and share joint financial and/or food resources and whose members consider themselves to be one household. Different from the family, a household can also consist of one member only.

The general data of households show the number and average size of households, types of households, households’ location by counties and change of economic situation of households during the years.

There are about 600,000 households in Estonia, the majority of them lives in cities. The average size of a household has been 2.3 members throughout the years.

The number of households with a single person, households with two members and pensioner households is the biggest in Estonia. There are over 40,000 single parents. During the last decade the share of the so-called typical households or the households with two children, as well as households with at least three children has decreased and the share of households with a single person has increased.

The household budget provides an overview of the monthly and annual expenditures of households per household member.

The data of the household budget are based on the Household Budget Survey of Statistics Estonia. The survey has been conducted since 1996 (except for the years 2008 and 2009) and over 3,600 households have participated in it every year.

The data are collected with the diary-method, the households under observation mark all their expenditures made during two weeks in the diary or add the purchase cheques to the diary.

Expenditures on food and housing are compulsory expenditures in household budget. The share of compulsory expenditures is the best indicator of the household living niveau. During the last years the share of compulsory expenditures has increased, but until 2007 a falling trend could be observed in compulsory expenditures. The increase of compulsory expenditures shows the decrease in life quality because households have less money and possibilities for other expenditures.

Besides food expenditures, another big expenditure group is expenditures related to dwelling or housing expenditures. Housing expenditures have increased significantly during recent years.

The third expenditure group by size is transport – here the expenditures depend to a great extent on the price of petrol.

As the Household Budget Survey is a survey with internationally harmonised methodology, and it is carried out also in many other European countries, the data of the survey are internationally comparable.

The data are comparable with other countries since 2005. It is interesting to compare the expenditure structure of Estonian people with the neighbouring countries, as Latvia and Lithuania, as well as with Nordic countries as Finland and with rich countries as Luxembourg. In Estonia the changes in compulsory expenditures as an indicator of life quality has been studied for years. In Latvia and Lithuania, the share of compulsory expenditures is bigger than in Estonia. In Latvia and Lithuania the expenditures on food are the largest compared to the above-mentioned countries. But in Estonia the expenditures on dwelling are the biggest. The share of compulsory expenditures in the total expenditure structure is the smallest in Finland and Luxembourg (16–17%), which indicates the high life quality of these countries. Transport expenditures are the biggest in Luxembourg and Finland, the smallest in Lithuania.

Expenditures on food, dwelling and transport, 2005