Last updated: 5 November 2024.
Highlights
This subchapter on living conditions is 1 of 9 thematic subchapters that provide a comprehensive glossary of variable definitions used within city statistics. The glossary is designed to ensure a clear understanding and interpretation of data disseminated by Eurostat, thereby improving the clarity of data requirements for the providers of these statistics in national statistical offices, while supporting the standardisation of statistical concepts across Europe.
This subchapter forms part of Eurostat’s City statistics manual.
Private households by composition
Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/543 on population and housing censuses regarding the technical specifications of the topics and their breakdowns provides 2 different definitions for the count of the number of private households (excluding institutional households) (DE3001V)
- under the housekeeping concept, a private household is defined as either
- a 1-person household – this refers to a person who lives alone in a separate housing unit or who occupies, as a lodger, a separate room (or rooms) in a housing unit but doesn’t join with any other occupants to form a multiperson household
- a multiperson household – this refers to a group of 2 or more people who share the whole or part of a housing unit and provide themselves with food and possibly other essentials for living; the members of a group may pool their incomes to varying extents
- under the household-dwelling concept, all the people living in a housing unit are considered members of the same household; therefore, the number of occupied housing units is equal to the number of households, and their locations are identical.
According to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/543, whenever possible, the ‘housekeeping concept’ should be preferred for identifying private households. This is because it provides a more detailed and nuanced understanding of household composition by considering actual living arrangements and resource-sharing practices among individuals. This method allows for a clearer distinction between 1-person households and multiperson households based on their living and economic arrangements, which can be crucial for certain types of socio-economic analysis. In city statistics, the household-dwelling concept is preferred. This is due to a reliance on administrative data for the production of statistics on cities and functional urban areas. Administrative records, such as those from housing registers, often list all occupants of a housing unit collectively, making it more straightforward to apply the household-dwelling concept. Data are collected for the following types of private household.
- The number of 1-person households (DE3002V).
- The number of lone parent private households (with children aged less than 18 years) (DE3005V) – a 1-family household with only 1 adult and at least 1 child aged less than 18 years; the adult isn’t necessarily a biological parent, rather they are an adult of the family nucleus.
- The number of lone pensioner (above retirement age) households (DE3008V) – a single-person household where that person has retired from work and has typically reached the national retirement age; as the national retirement age varies across EU countries, the emphasis is on the fact that these people won’t work anymore. Only people who have worked earlier are included, so people who never worked, for example, due to a handicap, and/or those receiving unemployment benefits aren’t included. People who supplement their pension with earnings from other sources (short-term tasks or others) should be included within this category.
- The number of households with children aged less than 18 years (DE3011V) – a private household (either a 1-family household or a household with 2 or more families) with 1 or more adults (aged over 18 years) and at least 1 child (aged less than 18 years).
- The number of people living in private households (excluding institutional households) (DE3017V) – a count of the number of individuals who reside in a private housing unit.
Housing
The number of conventional dwellings (SA1001V) is a count of the number of structurally separate and independent dwellings at fixed locations designed for permanent human habitation. At the reference date, these conventional dwellings may be used as a residence, vacant, or reserved for seasonal or secondary use. ‘Separate’ means the premises are surrounded by walls and covered by a roof or ceiling, allowing 1 or more persons to isolate themselves. ’Independent’ means having direct access from a street, staircase, passage, gallery or grounds. Occupied conventional dwellings are those which are the usual residence of 1 or more persons at the time of the census.
The number of empty conventional dwellings (SA1025V) refers to conventional dwellings that aren’t the usual residence of any person at the time of the census. These include dwellings reserved for seasonal or secondary use, vacant dwellings and conventional dwellings with people present but not included in the census.
Dwellings may be classified by type of building where they are placed. Different types of buildings/housing and their characteristics are defined by the Conference of European Statisticians – Recommendations for the 2020 Censuses of Population and Housing (New York and Geneva, 2015).
A building is any independent structure containing 1 or more dwellings, rooms, or spaces, covered by a roof and enclosed by external or dividing walls extending from the foundations to the roof. Buildings may serve various purposes, such as residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial, cultural or service-oriented. Examples include detached houses, apartment buildings, factories, shops, warehouses, garages and barns.
Residential buildings are categorised as follows.
- The number of houses (SA1004V), disaggregated into
- detached houses – a standalone house not attached to any other buildings
- detached houses with 1 dwelling – a single dwelling unit
- detached houses with 2 dwellings – 2 separate units, 1 above the other
- semi-detached houses – 2 attached dwellings
- row (or terraced) houses – at least 3 attached or connected dwellings, each with separate access to the outside.
- The number of apartment buildings (SA1005V), which may be located in
- apartment buildings with 3–9 dwellings
- apartment buildings with 10 or more dwellings.
An apartment is defined as a dwelling within an apartment building. Note: if a house contains more than 1 dwelling, these units shouldn’t be classified as apartments.
As noted above, in the context of social statistics a household is defined as a housekeeping unit or, operationally, as a social unit
- having common arrangements
- sharing household expenses or daily needs
- in a shared common residence.
As such, a household includes either 1 person living alone or a group of people, not necessarily related, living at the same address with common housekeeping. In other words, sharing at least 1 meal per day or sharing a living/sitting room. By contrast, collective households or institutional households include, for example, hospitals, old people’s homes, residential homes, prisons, military barracks, religious institutions, boarding houses, workers’ hostels and so on.
There are 4 specific indicators in the data collection that cover households
- the number of households living in houses (SA1007V) – a count of private households residing in houses
- the number of households living in apartments (SA1008V) – a count of private households residing in apartments
- the number of households owning their own dwelling (SA1011V) – a count of private households that own the dwelling in which they reside
- the number of households living in private rented dwellings (SA1013V) – a count of private households that live in dwellings which are rented.
The average area of living accommodation (SA1022V) is measured as the interior floor space within the outer walls of occupied dwellings, expressed in square metres per person (m²/person). It excludes non-habitable areas like cellars and attics, as well as shared spaces in multi-unit buildings.
Alternatively, data providers may choose to measure the total area of rooms inside a dwelling. A ’room’ is defined as an enclosed space within the dwelling, with walls reaching from the floor to the ceiling (or roof) and must be at least 2 metres high (over most of its area). A room must also be large enough to fit a bed for an adult, with a minimum size of 4 square metres. Rooms that meet these criteria include bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, habitable cellars or attics, servant’s quarters and kitchens. However, smaller kitchens (less than 4 square metres), verandas, utility rooms (like boiler or laundry rooms), lobbies, bathrooms and toilets aren’t counted as rooms. Additionally, rooms without windows, such as some cellars are typically excluded, unless they are used for domestic purposes (for example, large lobbies with functional use or windowless internal bedrooms).
The average annual rent for housing (SA1049V) is defined within the classification of individual consumption according to purpose (COICOP) as Group 04.1, ‘actual rentals for housing’, as paid by tenants during the reference year. This amount, expressed in euro per square metre (€/m²) includes the amount paid to the landlord, irrespective of any social benefits the tenant receives from public authorities, even if such payments go directly to the landlord at the tenant’s discretion.
Rentals typically cover
- the use of the land on which the property stands
- the dwelling occupied
- fixtures and fittings for heating, plumbing, lighting, and so on
- furniture, in the case of a furnished dwelling
- the use of a garage for parking in connection with the dwelling (the garage doesn’t need to be physically attached to the dwelling, nor leased from the same landlord).
Rentals don’t include
- payment for garages or parking spaces not used in connection with the dwelling (COICOP Class 07.2.4).
- charges for water supply (04.4.1), refuse collection (04.4.2) and sewerage collection (04.4.3)
- co-proprietor charges in multi-occupied buildings for services like caretaking, gardening, stairwell cleaning, heating, lighting, maintenance of lifts and refuse disposal chutes (04.4.4)
- charges for electricity (04.5.1) and gas (04.5.2)
- charges for heating and hot water supplied by district heating plants (04.5.5).
The average price for buying a house is defined as the average buying price for all houses sold during the reference year, in euros (€). This includes both new and existing houses, be they terraced, semi-detached or detached houses. Prices for new houses should include VAT, while for existing houses transfer taxes should be excluded. Real estate agency fees are excluded in all cases. Since most houses come with attached parcels of land (often in the form of a garden), and the separation of land price isn’t typically recorded, any land involved in transactions for buying a house should be included in the average price. The average price for buying a house (SA1050V) concerns the overall price for the property in euro (€), while the average price for buying a house relative to its area (SA1052V) provides a measure of average property costs relative to their size, expressed in euro per square metre (€/m²).
The average price for buying an apartment is defined as the average buying price for all apartments sold during the reference year, in euros (€). This includes both new and existing apartments. Prices for new apartments should include VAT, while for existing apartments, transfer taxes should be excluded. Real estate agency fees are excluded in all cases. If newly built apartments are sold with a parcel of land (often in the form of a garden), any land involved in transactions for buying an apartment should be included in the average price. The average price for buying an apartment (SA0151V) concerns the overall price for the dwelling in euro (€), while the average price for buying an apartment relative to its area (SA1053V) provides a measure of average property costs relative to their size, expressed in euro per square metre (€/m²).
Note: there are 2 ways to collect house/apartment prices
- the average price for transacted dwellings (houses/apartments) during the reference year (which is generally easier), or
- the average price for the stock of dwellings.
Legislation in force and other documents
Source data for tables and graphs
Explore further
Database
- City statistics (urb), see:
- Cities and greater cities (urb_cgc)
- Functional urban areas (urb_luz)
- Perception survey results (urb_percep)