The European consumer in the enlarged Union Statistics in focus POPULATION AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 02 2005 Author Antonio PUENTE Contents The consumption habits of European consumers vary substantially among the 25 Member States of the European Union Factors such as culture tradition household composition income and degree of urbanisation can influence habits in each country The accession of 10 new Member States NMS on May 1st 2004 has made the differences between EU member states even more apparent than before This document presents a comparison between the household consumption expenditure of the EU 25 member states based on HBS1 data together with some data from Bulgaria and Romania Around 174 000 households from the 15 old Member States 79 000 from the NMS and 39 000 from BU and RO were surveyed in 19992 The results of 27 national household budget surveys 25 EU countries Bulgaria and Romania are available in Community format and allow comparisons of standards of living across Europe Average household budgets in the enlarged Union are 8 9 smaller than in the EU 15 The national standards of living can be measured in terms of household final consumption expenditure Figure 1 shows that the households of the EU 25 spent on average 22 566 PPS3 in 1999 around 8 9 less than the households of the EU 15 which spent 24 772 PPS during the same year4 Latvia Estonia Lithuania Hungary Poland Slovakia Czech Republic Finland Portugal Slovenia Spain Malta Sweden Greece Denmark Germany France Netherlands Austria Italy Belgium United Kingdom Cyprus Ireland Luxembourg Average household budgets in the enlarged Union are 8 9 smaller than in the EU 15 1 The influence of the explicative factors of household final consumption expenditure in the enlarged Union is rather similar to the EU 15 2 Big differences on the structure of household final consumption expenditure across Europe reflects a large variety of cultural geographical and economic circumstances 4 Manuscript completed on 18 02 2005 ISSN 1024 4352 Catalogue number KS NK 05 002 EN N European Communities 2005 European Union 15 countries European Union 25 countries Romania Bulgaria 0 5 000 10 000 15 000 20 000 25 000 30 000 35 000 40 000 45 000 50 000 Figure 1 Average household consumption expenditure in 1999 PPS 1 Household Budget Surveys 2 The reference year 1999 has been chosen because it is the latest year with HBS data available for the whole EU The actual survey years may differ see the methodological notes 3 4 See methodological notes The data of the NMS Bulgaria and Romania are not fully comparable because of methodological divergences in particular on the treatment of owner occupiers imputed rent These results are presented in Purchasing Power Standards to take into account the differences in purchasing power between the countries To a certain extent the household consumption expenditure measured by some NMS is smaller than for other countries due to the non imputation of any rent for the owner occupiers The household final consumption expenditure of the enlarged Union varies considerably ranging from 5 545 PPS in Latvia to 43 247 PPS in Luxembourg The countries with the lowest consumption expenditure belong to the group of new Member States and are located in the North East of Europe whereas Ireland United Kingdom and the countries of Central Europe have medium to high values of household consumption expenditure relatively moderate These differences between EU15 countries become even smaller if we divide them by the household size measured in adult equivalents please see figure 2 In that case it may be easily observed that 9 countries lie within an interval of 12 of the EU 15 average Portugal Spain Finland Greece Sweden Italy France Germany Denmark Ireland Austria Belgium Netherlands United Kingdom Luxembourg The variations in household final consumption expenditure between the EU 25 countries are much wider than between the EU 15 If we look at the values of the EU 15 we may easily observe that with the exception of Luxembourg differences are European Union 15 countries 0 5 000 10 000 15 000 20 000 25 000 30 000 Figure 2 Average household final consumption expenditure per adult equivalent in 1999 in the EU 15 PPS The influence of the explicative factors of household final consumption expenditure in the enlarged Union is rather similar to the EU 15 Several factors may be identified as influencing the household final consumption expenditure The structure and the intensity of this influence are different for each country depending on their socioeconomic characteristics However as we will see in this section the structure of such influences does not change too much from the EU 15 to the EU 25 In the following paragraphs we will carry out some comparisons between some influential patterns in the EU 15 and in the NMS Although it is possible to identify certain differences the global picture remains quite similar Figure 3 shows the influence of the age of the reference person5 on the household consumption expenditure This figure shows that the influence patterns are similar in both groups of countries The households with the oldest reference persons are those which spend less The following are the households with youngest reference persons The households with mid age reference persons are the ones with higher consumption expenditure 60 years and over Between 45 and 59 years NMS EU 15 Between 30 and 44 years Less than 30 years 0 5 000 10 000 15 000 20 000 25 000 30 000 35 000 Figure 3 Average household consumption expenditure in 1999 by age of the reference person PPS There are only two small differences between the patterns of household consumption expenditure in the two groups of countries age seems to be more influential for the consumption expenditure of the EU15 than for the NMS and the age groups with higher consumption expenditure are different 30 44 years old in the NMS and 45 59 years old in the EU 15 5 See methodological notes 2 Statistics in focus Population and social conditions 02 2005 When looking at household consumption expenditure by employment status of the reference person see figure 4 we find that households with reference persons who are active always spend much more than households where the reference person is not working However the categories with highest and lowest consumption expenditure are different for the two groups of countries The households that spend more in the NMS are those for which the reference person
View Full Document
Unlocking...