According to the latest report from Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, a third of household expenditure in the EU27 in 2005 went on housing, including utilities & furniture (33.1%), and almost a fifth on food, beverages & tobacco (19.4%). The other half of the expenditure was mainly dedicated to transport (11.9%), recreation & culture (8.4%), clothing & footwear (5.7%), restaurants & hotels (5.3%), health (3.4%), communications (3.3%) and education (1.0%).

Household expenditure on housing & furniture ranged from 19% of total household expenditure in 2005 in Romania and 20% in Malta to 38% in Bulgaria and 37% in Luxembourg. The shares for food, beverages & tobacco ranged from 11% in Luxembourg and 12% in the United Kingdom and Sweden to 50% in Romania and 37% in Lithuania.

Households with lowest income spend 60% of their expenditure on food and housing, compared with 45% for households with highest income.

There are significant differences in the spending patterns of households within the EU, depending on their equivalised disposable income In 2005:

• On food, beverages & tobacco the lowest quintile of households according to disposable income (the 20% of households with the lowest equivalised disposable income) in the EU27 spent 25% of their expenditure on food, beverages & tobacco, and 37% on housing. The highest quintile (the 20% of households with the highest equivalised disposable income) spent 15% and 31% respectively.
• On the other hand, the highest quintile spent a larger proportion of their expenditure on transport (14%), recreation & culture (9%) and restaurants & hotels (6%) than the lowest quintile did (8%, 6% and 4% respectively).

More Figures

In 2005, household expenditure on alcoholic beverages ranged from 0.5% of total expenditure in Cyprus to 4.1% in Ireland. For meat, the share of household expenditure ranged from 1.9% in Sweden to 11.8% in Romania. The share for newspapers, books & stationary varied between 0.6% in Bulgaria and 2.4% in Malta. For household expenditure on restaurants & cafés, it ranged from 0.5% in Romania to 9.6% in Portugal.

These figures published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities are based on data from the 2005 Household Budget Survey (HBS). The HBS provides a detailed breakdown of the consumption expenditure of households by socio-economic aspects, such as the number of adults and children in the household, the working situation of the reference person in the household, the age of the reference person etc. The HBS also provides data on a very detailed level of consumption.

What is Household Budget Survey (HBS)?

The Household Budget Survey (HBS) is a national survey conducted every five years mainly focusing on consumption expenditure of households. The data in this News Release refer to newly released data with reference year 2005.

What is Equivalised disposable income?

Equivalised disposable income is calculated as the disposable income of the household divided by an equivalised number of persons in the household, where a weight of 1.0 is attributed to the first household member aged 14 or over, 0.5 to each additional member aged 14 or more and 0.3 to each member aged less than 14 years old.