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Income and living conditions (ilc)

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National Reference Metadata in Single Integrated Metadata Structure (SIMS)

Compiling agency: Statistics Netherlands

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The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is a survey-based instrument aiming at collecting timely and comparable cross-sectional and longitudinal multidimensional microdata on income, poverty, social exclusion and living conditions. In addition, it collects module variables every three years, six years or ad-hoc new policy needs modules.

The EU-SILC instrument provides two types of data:

  1. Cross-sectional data pertaining to a given time or a certain time period with variables on income, poverty, social exclusion and other living conditions;
  2. Longitudinal data pertaining to individual-level changes over time, observed periodically over four‐or more year rotation scheme (Annex III (2) of 2019/1700).

Social exclusion and housing condition information is collected mainly at household level while labour, education and health information is obtained for persons aged 16 and over. The core of the instrument is income information at very detailed component level and mainly collected at personal level.

28 May 2025

Statistical concepts and definitions for EU-SILC are specified in Regulation (EU) 2019/1700, Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2181, and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2242. Additional information is available in the EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) methodology and in the methodological guidelines and description of EU-SILC target variables (see CIRCABC).

Further details are provided in items 5, 15.1.1.1, 15.2.2 and 18.3.

Statistical units are private households and all persons living in these households who have usual residence in the Member State. Annex II of the Commission implementing regulation (EU) 2019/2242 defines specific statistical units per variable and specifies the, content of the quality reports on the organization of a sample survey in the income and living conditions domain pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

The target population is private households and all persons composing these households having their usual residence in the Netherlands. Private household means a person living alone or a group of persons who live together, providing oneself or themselves with the essentials of living. A person has his/her usual residence in the Netherlands if the person has his/her actual place of residence in the Netherlands. The person must be listed in the Dutch population register.

Territorial coverage: Kingdom of the Netherlands excluding overseas territories.

Description of reference period used for incomes

Period for taxes on income and social insurance contributions

Income reference periods used

Reference period for taxes on wealth

Lag between the income ref period and current variables

Taxes on income and social contributions are based on the 'income received' in the income reference year (accrual basis) and do not refer to the amounts actually paid in the income reference year.

The income data of EU-SILC refer to the previous calendar year.

There are no taxes on wealth in the Netherlands.

The EU-SILC fieldwork period started in February 2024 and ended in September 2024 Therefore, the lag is at minimum 2 months and at maximum 9 months.

According to Reg. (EU) 2019/1700 Annex II, precision requirements for all data sets are expressed in standard errors and are defined as continuous functions of the actual estimates and of the size of the statistical population in a country or in a NUTS 2 region. For the income and living conditions domain, the estimated standard errors of the following indicators are examined according to certain parameters set:

  • Ratio at‐risk‐of‐poverty or social exclusion to population;
  • Ratio of at‐persistent‐risk‐of‐poverty over four years to population;
  • Ratio at‐risk‐of‐poverty or social exclusion to population in each NUTS 2 region.

Further information is provided in section 13.2 Sampling error.

The data involves several units of measure depending upon the variables. Income variables are transmitted to Eurostat in national currency. For more information, see methodological guidelines and description of EU-SILC target variables available on CIRCABC

Estimation and Imputation

As income data are based on register information – except for the questions concerning some inter-household transfers (paid and received)– the income variables do not consist of partial unit non-response or item non-response. If the household respondent refused to answer or did not know the amount of the inter-household transfers mean value imputation was used.

Company car

The estimation of the value of ‘company car’ has been specified by the amount of benefit for which the recipient is assessed for tax purposes. The calculation of the employee income component ‘company car’ follows the rules of the tax authorities. The additional wages or additional income is a percentage of the car’s (original) value.

Current rent related to the occupied dwelling

Current rent related to the occupied dwelling (HH060) is imputed when missing and estimated based on the number rooms in the households’ main residence.

Total housing cost

Electricity and gas consumption costs are part of housing costs. Data on household energy consumption are obtained from energy companies. Where consumption information is missing, it is imputed based on characteristics of the dwelling and the household.

Data is collected by computer-assisted web interviewing and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CAWI and CATI) and then supplemented with data from administratieve sources/registers.

The following administrative registers are used:

  • Municipal Population Register (BRP): Country of birth (respondent, father, mother), martital status, citizenship
  • Income and Taxation Register: All income components
  • Rent allowance register: HH060 (Current rent) and HY070G (Housing allowances)
  • Rent register: HH060
  • Register on mandatory services and charges like sewage removal, refuse removal and local taxes: HH070 (Housing costs)
  • Register on use of utilities (electricity, gas): HH070 (Housing costs)

Annual

Data collection: 16 February 2024 - 9 September 2024.

Date of the dissemination of national results: as yet unknown

First transmission to Eurostat: 18 December 2024

Number of days between the end of fieldwork and the first transmission (Eurostat): 105

Second transmission to Eurostat: 18 February 2025

In the second transmission, some small errors identified by Eurostat were corrected.

The main indicators are comparable at NUTS2 level.

See Annex