What does the sample survey of income and expenditure describe?
The sample survey of income and expenditure (German abbreviation: EVS) provides important official statistics on the standards of living of households in Germany. Among other things, it provides statistical information on the households' equipment with consumer durables, on their income, property and debt situation as well as on their final consumption expenditure. The survey covers households of all social groups to obtain a representative picture of the living standards of nearly the whole population in Germany.
The results of the sample survey of income and expenditure serve as a major data basis for the German Federal Government's reports on poverty and wealth, for national action plans to combat poverty and social exclusion and also for consumption assessment which is required to determine the standard rate of basic security benefits in old age and in cases of reduced earning capacity. Within the system of official statistics, the results of the survey regarding the final consumption expenditure of households are used to update the weighting pattern applied in consumer price statistics. Besides, they serve as a basis for the expenditure-based approach to measuring GDP in the context of national accounts.
The detailed results on the households' final consumption expenditure for food, beverages and tobacco are also used for nutritional research projects and are integrated into the Federal Government's Report on Nutrition.
How is the sample survey of income and expenditure conducted?
Conducting the sample survey of income and expenditure is based on close co-operation between the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder. While the Federal Statistical Office prepares the survey in organisational and technical terms, the Länder offices recruit the households to be covered and conduct the relevant interviews. The data collected in the survey are further processed by the Federal Statistical Office, which also calculates the results for the federal level.
The legal basis for the survey is the Law on Household Budget Statistics in the amended version published in the Federal Law Gazette, Part III, Subsection No. 708-6, amended by Article 10 of the Law of 14 March 1980 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 294), in conjunction with Article 2 of the Ordinance of 26 March 1991 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 846) and the Federal Statistics Law of 22 January 1987 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. p.462, 565), last amended by Article 2 of the Law of 9 June 2005 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 1534). The data are collected as specified by Article 2 of the Law on Household Budget Statistics.
The sample survey of income and expenditure is conducted at five-year intervals. Since there is no legal obligation for households to participate in the survey, any information is rendered on a voluntary basis. Every five years, approximately 60,000 households in Germany are covered by the survey, including nearly 13,000 households in the new Länder and Berlin-East. Hence, the sample survey of income and expenditure, which has been conducted in the former territory of the Federal Republic since 1962/63 and in the new Länder and Berlin-East since 1993, is the largest survey of its kind throughout the European Union.
The sample survey of income and expenditure is based on quota sampling. All households are selected for and included in the survey on the basis of a specified quota plan. The universe of households is subdivided into groups on the basis of specific quota variables. The quota for each group is specified as the number of households to be interviewed. As with the microcensus, the universe of households is first subdivided by Länder. In a second step, the total of households in each Land is grouped by the following quota variables: type of household, social status of the main income earner and net household income. The number of households to be interviewed is determined for each of the quota cells obtained in this way.
As regards the survey process and design, the sample survey of income and expenditure comprises four components. The General Information covers not only the basic socio-demographic and socio-economic data of households and individuals but also the housing situation and the equipment with consumer durables. In some Länder, those data were for the first time collected online in the EVS. The questionnaire on financial and non-financial assets covers information on financial and real property as well as on consumer credit and mortgage debts of households.
The third component of the sample survey of income and expenditure is the household book where each of the participating households records its income and expenditure over a period of three months. To ensure an even distribution across the year, the overall sample of households is subdivided into four parts, with every part having to record the data for a given quarter of the reference year.
The last component of the survey is the "detailed log book" for food, beverages and tobacco where every fifth participating household enters its detailed expenditure on food and beverages by quantity and price for a given month of the year.
When are the results of the sample survey of income and expenditure released?
The results of the 2008 EVS regarding General Information and financial and real property were published in December 2008 and spring 2009, respectively. The results from the household book have been available since autumn 2010. The Fachserien and cross-section publications of the Federal Statistical Office on those issues are available for free download through the publication service. Data on topical issues are included in press releases which are available from the Federal Statistical Office’s website.
The results from the detailed log book for the households’ expenditure on food, beverages and tobacco will be published in the first half of 2011.
How accurate is the sample survey of income and expenditure?
Owing to the large number of households covered in the EVS and the wide range of plausibility checks carried out during the processing stage, the survey results are highly accurate and reliable. Representative data are obtained for almost all households since all social groups are covered by a quota plan and the results obtained are expanded on the basis of the relevant microcensus figures. However, the EVS does not provide data on persons living in communal establishments and institutions because they are not included in the household definition applied in the survey. The EVS neither provides data on households with a monthly net income of Euro 18,000 or more as the number of these households participating in the survey is usually not sufficient to provide reliable information on their standards of living.
More detailed information on the EVS is contained in the qualityreport (only in German). The quality report on the 2008 EVS cannot be compiled until the last survey component (detailed log book for food, beverages and tobacco) has been processed and analysed.
