Luxembourg

Title: Enquête budget des ménages

GENERAL INFORMATION AND BASIC DEFINITIONS

1. Background

Further information is available from STATEC of BP 304 L- 2013 Luxembourg, phone: 352 478 4250, fax: 352 26 19 06 41, e-mail: jean.langers@statec.etat.lu.
Data have been collected by household survey since 1956.

2. Purpose and coverage

The following purposes are considered to be very important or of some importance:

• to obtain weights for consumer price index
• to estimate household expenditure for national accounts
• to study the general structure of household incomes/expenditures
• to study income/expenditure disparities among socio-economic groups
• to study consumer behaviour among socio-economic groups

Lesser importance is attached to:

• to study income/expenditure patterns of disadvantaged groups, including pensioner households, single parent households, etc
• for general poverty and/or income distribution studies
• to study effects on income and expenditure of policy changes, especially tax changes
• for market research purposes

Geographic coverage: National without any specific geographic areas excluded.

Population coverage:
The following types of household are included in the data collection:

• one person private households
• private households with more than one person
• diplomatic households in the country

The following types of household are excluded in the data collection:

• those in collective housing (such as long term hospitals, prisons, monasteries, military quarters)
• non-resident households of nationals (households of nationals located abroad)

Units: Dwelling units are not used in the sample selection.

Data are recorded for the household unit which is characterised by:

• one person units
• two or more people living together:
  • sharing a single dwelling or compound
  • sharing meals
  • sharing a common budget for (at least) food and housing expenditures

Unit members: Visitors (not usual residents) temporarily living in the dwelling are not included as unit members. Domestic staff living in same dwelling/compound are included in the unit. Renters living in same dwelling/compound are not included in the unit.

Head of unit:
The concept of reference person is used in this survey and is characterised by:

• responsible for financial maintenance of household/unit

3. Reference periods

SURVEY METHODOLOGY

4. Sample design

The Primary, Secondary and Ultimate Sampling Units are none, none and household respectively.

Stratification:

The sampling frames for the Primary Sampling Unit (PSU) and Ultimate Sampling Unit (USU) were none and none respectively. The sample size was 3000 households or other units. The overall response rate for the survey was 50 percent. Errors/biases were minimized by using an increased sample size.

DATA COLLECTION, CONCEPTS, DEFINITIONS AND CLASSIFICATIONS

5. Income data

Income data are collected. Receipts do not have to be regular and recurring to be considered as income. Income excludes receipts resulting from the sale or reduction of assets and/or from incurring liabilities. Income excludes receipts that are not currently available to the unit.

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6. Expenditure data

Data collection method:
Diaries are used to collect expenditure data and are maintained for two weeks.

Diaries are used to collect expenditure on the following items:

• food
• alcohol, tobacco
• other household non-durables (such as newspapers, batteries)

Interviews are used to collect expenditure data with the respondent completing the interview by a mix of recall and using documentation.

Data for the following expenditure items are collected by referring:

• to expenditures in last 6 months:
  • clothing, footwear
  • other durable goods
  • households services
  • personal services

Classification: COICOP is used for classifying expenditure and has an unspecified number of separate categories at the finest level.

7. Other Data Collection Issues

The following other topics are covered:

• demographic characteristics
• education attainment of members
• employment status of members
• occupation of members
• ownership of selected durable goods
• housing characteristics

Non-response: Non-contacted households are substituted, but not refusal households.

Reporting errors are reduced using the following measures:

• bounding interview
• adequate cues or props for prompting
• quality control

DATA PROCESSING, ANALYSIS AND DISSEMINATION

Answers are not pre-coded on data collection forms, but are coded by office staff.

The responses are edited by the following:

• interviewers, data collectors
• office staff

Extreme values are deleted. In-kind receipts and consumption of own production are included in the estimates. In-kind receipts are valued using: the respondent's estimate. Consumption of own production is valued using: the imputed in office processing using market prices.

Treatment of owner-occupied housing: Values of owner-occupied housing are included in the total income/expenditure estimates and are valued using the rental equivalent net of housing costs usually paid by owners.

The following information is used in this valuation:

• respondent provides an estimate
• imputed based on housing and rent data

Treatment of selected groups/values in analysis: Some households/units are excluded from analysis because of incomplete response. Supplementary sources are not used to adjust estimates for under- or over-reporting. No groups are excluded from data analysis.

Weighting:
Weighting factors are used to adjust for:

• sampling
• non-response
• bench-marking

Sampling errors: Sampling errors are computed for major aggregates and these sampling errors are available on request.

Tabulation and Analysis: Statistics are presented showing averages per year and statistics are analysed and tabulated for households only.

The following classifications are used for tabulation and analysis of expenditure statistics:

• age of reference person or head of household
• occupation of reference person or head of household
• other characteristic of reference person or head of household
• income percentiles
• household size
• structure of household

Documentation and Dissemination:
Published survey reports: eBM 98, 2000

Separate tables are not published for any special population groups.