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Statistical presentation

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Labour and Income, Social Statistics.
Martin Faris Sawaed Nielsen
+45 39 17 34 98

MFS@dst.dk

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Survey on Living Conditions (SILC)

SILC consists of data on the composition of the households and their living conditions including questions on how easy it is for the household to make ends meet and the financial burden of the housing costs. Further information is collected on health and position on the labour market etc. These interview questions are then supplemented by a lot of register based information, mainly on incomes, demographics, housing and education.

Data description

The Survey on living conditions is based on a sample of 6,215 completed interviews with Danish households in 2022. The participating households include about 11,800 persons. It's a longitudinal survey based on 4 year panels.

The results of the survey are primarily disseminated by Eurostat. Statistics Denmark only publish a few indicators:

In the Statbank tables SILC1P-4P you will find data on the interview question:

  • "Thinking of your household's total income, to what extent is your household able to make ends meet, namely, to pay for its usual necessary expenses?"

The data can be grouped by age, sex, socioeconomic status, income and household type.

In the Statbank tables SILC1B-4B you will find data on the interview question:

  • "Please think of your total housing costs including mortgage repayment (installment and interest) or rent, insurance, maintenance and service charges. To what extent are these costs a financial burden to your household?"

The data can be grouped by age, sex, socioeconomic status, income and household type.

Additionally you can find the poverty indicator Economically vulnerable and its components in SILC1A with the possibility to group by sex or age. The interview questions are:

  • "Thinking of your household's total income, to what extent is your household able to make ends meet, namely, to pay for its usual necessary expenses?"
  • "Has the household in 20xx [last year] been in arrears, i.e. has been unable to pay one or more of the following expenses on time due to financial difficulties? Rent or mortgage repayment, utility bills (heating, electricity, gas, water) or hire purchase instalments or other loan payments"
  • "Can your household afford an unexpected required expense of 10,000 DKK and pay through its own resources?"
  • "Does your household have a car for private use? If you do not have a car: Would you like to have it but cannot afford it?"
  • "Can your entire household afford to go for a week's annual holiday, away from home? (Including stays in a second dwelling or with friends/relatives)"

Classification system

Classifications in the Statbank: Socioeconomic status: Children, Students, Employed, Non-working incl. disability pensioners, Old-age pensioners incl. voluntary early retirement. Children are defined as persons under the age of 16 years.

Type of household: Single persons without children, Single persons with children, Couples without children, Couples with children, Other types of households. Children are defined as persons under the age of 16. Households with children above the age of 15 as well as households with more than two adults are placed in Other types of households.

Incomes: The quintiles are defined based on equivalised disposable income from the previous year.

Sector coverage

Household sector - only private households. Collectives, institutions etc. are not included

Statistical concepts and definitions

Equivalised disposable income: The total income of a household, after tax and other deductions, that is available for spending or saving, divided by the number of household members converted into equalised adults. Household members are equalised or made equivalent by weighting each according to their age.

Statistical unit

Persons

Statistical population

Persons who live in Denmark.

Reference area

Denmark.

Time coverage

These statistics cover the time period from 2004 and onwards.

Base period

Not relevant for this statistics.

Unit of measure

Percent of total number of persons in private households.

Reference period

The reference year in publications and the StatBank is the year in which the interview was conducted. Age is the age of the person on the 31st December the year before and the incomes are the yearly income in the year before.

Frequency of dissemination

Annually

Legal acts and other agreements

The data collection adhere to Law on Statistics Denmark and the EU-regulation.

Cost and burden

As the participation is voluntary there is no information on the response burden. As register based data is used very much and the sample size has been minimized, the overall burden for Danish Households will be much smaller than in countries where register based data is not available.

Comment

Additional information on the survey is available on Eurostats Website