Community statistics: income and living conditions in the Union EU-SILC

PURPOSE: to introduce a new module “material deprivations” to the list of variables under the EU-SILC Regulations.

PROPOSED ACT: Council Regulation.

CONTENT: to recall, the main aim of the EU-SILC Regulations are to establish a common framework for the systematic production of Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. The statistics encompass comparable and cross-sectional data on income and on the level and composition of poverty and social exclusion in Europe. The Regulations also allow for the targeting of secondary areas – modules – to be included in the system every year staring from 2005 to complement the target primary variables. The modules for 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 related respectively to: intergenerational transmission of poverty, to social participation, to housing conditions and to over-indebtedness and financial exclusion.

The theme for the 2009 module is “material deprivation”. The list of variables to be included in this module has been developed by a Joint Eurostat/ISG Task Force. The ultimate objective of the module is to run methodological studies as from 2011/2012 on material deprivation in order to improve the deprivation component of the core (annual) SILC survey.

The list of target secondary variables, the variable codes and the definitions for the 2009 module on material deprivation, to be included in the cross-sectional component of the Community statistics on income and living conditions, are set out in Annex to the proposed Regulation. They include, inter alia, information on housing, the environment, financial stress and durables (mobile phones), basic needs, unmet needs such as leisure and social activities and children’s items.