Statistics Sweden 

Department of Social Statistics and Analysis

Section for Statistics on Living Conditions and Democracy

Statistics Sweden 

Solna strandväg 86

171 54 Solna

The EU survey on the use of ICT in households and by individuals is an annual survey conducted since 2002. In Sweden, it has been conducted since 2003. The survey is based on Eurostat's annual model questionnaire on ICT usage in households and by individuals. In 2022, the survey collects data on the access to information and communication technologies, use of the internet, use of e-government, use of e-commerce, internet of things, as well as green ICT. Collected data is used to measure the progress in the implementation of one of the main political priorities of the European Commission for 2019 to 2024 – A Europe fit for the digital age.

National language: Befolkningens it-användning 2022

English: ICT usage in households and by individuals 2022

Questionnaire in national language and the translation in English are available in the annex.

The following common concepts and definitions apply under the Integrated European Social Statistics (IESS):

• the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011 published in the following breakdowns: low (ISCED levels 0-2: no formal education, primary education or lower secondary education), medium (ISCED levels 3-4: upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education) and high (ISCED levels 5-6: tertiary programmes which normally need a successful completion of ISCED 3 or 4, or second-stage tertiary education leading to an advanced research qualification);
• the International Standard Classification for Occupation ISCO-08 at the 2-digit level;
• the Classification of Economic Activities (NACE Rev.2-2008), at section level;
• the Common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 1) – finer granularity of NUTS 2 is provided on optional basis by some Member states;
• the SCL - Geographical code list;
• information about household income is provided at lower level of detail. 

Additional classifications used in the national questionnaire: 

• Age in the following breakdowns: 16-24 years, 25-34 years, 35-44 years, 45-54 years, 55-64 years, 65-74 years, 75-85 years
• Education:  Post- secondary education, Compulsory education, Upper- secondary education 
• Employment: Employees/self- employed persons, Job seeker, Retirees and others, Student
• Type of household: Households without children, Households with children, Households with one adult, Households with at least two adults
• Disposable income in quintiles: First quintile (lowest income), Second quintile (second lowest income), Third quintile (middle income), Fourth quintile (second highest income), Fifth quintile (highest income)
• Background: Born in Sweden, Foreign born
• Degree of urbanisation: Densely populated area, Intermediate density area, Thinly populated area
• Access to the internet at home: Have access to the internet, Don't have access to the internet

The ICT survey in households and by individuals covers those households having at least one member in the age group 16 to 74 years old. Internet access of households refers to the percentage of households that have an internet access, so that anyone in the household could use the internet.

No deviations are observed in the scope. 

The survey is collecting data of internet users, individuals who have used the internet in the three months prior to the survey. Regular internet users are individuals who used the internet, on average, at least once a week in the three months prior to the survey. 

The model questionnaire on ICT usage in households and by individuals provides a large variety of variables covering among others the following areas: 

• Access to ICT (data collected at household level)
• Use of the Internet (data collected at individual level)
• Use of e-Commerce (data collected at individual level)
• Internet of Things (data collected at individual level)
• Green ICT (data collected at individual level) 

This annual survey is used to benchmark ICT-driven developments, both by following developments for core variables over time and by looking in greater depth at other aspects at a specific point in time. While the survey initially concentrated on access and connectivity issues, its scope has subsequently been extended to cover a variety of subjects (for example, the use of e-government and e-commerce) and socio-economic analysis (such as regional diversity, gender specificity, differences in age, education and the employment situation). The scope of the survey with respect to different technologies is also adapted so as to cover new product groups and means of delivering communication technologies to end-users.

For more details on the methodology applicable in each survey year, please consult the Methodological Manual for the respective year on CIRCABC - Methodological Manual - Information society statistics (europa.eu).

Deviations from standard ICT concepts: No deviations from standard ICT concepts are observed. 

Households and Individuals

In the ICT usage survey, the target population for the different statistical units is:

- individuals: all individuals aged 16 to 74;

- households: all (private) households with at least one member aged 16 to 74. 

Target population composed of households and/or individuals:

• Number of households: 3 695 804
  
• Number of individuals:  8 283 819

Non-compulsory age groups also included in the target population:

All the territory of the country 

Year 2022

Not applicable

Percentages of ‘Households’ and Percentages of ‘Individuals’

In general, data refer to the first quarter of the reference year. For details see the annexed file: 'Questionnaire SE ICT HH IND 2022 EN.pdf'

In general, data refer to the last three months before the data collection. Fieldwork: 25 March 2022 - 6 June 2022

The legal basis for the 2022 EU survey on the use of ICT in households and by individuals is the Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 October 2019 establishing a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples (OJ  L 261 I, 14.10.2019, p. 1), as implemented by the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1223 of 27 July 2021 specifying the technical items of the data set, establishing the technical formats for transmission of information and specifying the detailed arrangements and content of the quality reports on the organisation of a sample survey in the use of information and communication technologies domain for reference year 2022 pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ L 2269, 27.07.2021, pp. 1-45).

Complementary national legislation constituting the legal basis for the survey on the use of ICT in households and by individuals:  Regulations on processing personal data are contained in the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the Official Statistics Act (2001:99), and the Official Statistics Ordinance (2001:100). The survey is voluntary for participants in Sweden. 

Micro data is not shared between agencies in the national statistical system. 

Micro data is shared in two ways:

• via transmission to Eurostat
• via service 'Ordering microdata' in Statistics Sweden, where government agencies, researches and other qualified and approved users can access micro data.

The answers that submit are held confidential, and all those who work on the survey are bound by the obligation of professional secrecy. Confidentiality applies under Chapter 24, Section 8 of the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400). Regulations on processing personal data are contained in the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the Official Statistics Act (2001:99), and the Official Statistics Ordinance (2001:100). In addition, there are rules in the Act on supplementary provisions to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (2018:218) and in regulations issued in association with the Act. 

Microdata of ICT usage in households and by individuals do not contain any administrative information such as names or addresses that would allow direct identification. For more details see Statistics Sweden's microdata. External users, e.g. researcher must be approved and only have access to information where personal number is replaced with serial numbers that do not allow to identify individuals. 

An estimate is not published if it based on fewer than 20 sample observations or if the non-response for the item concerned exceeds 50%. 

The target date is November of the survey year. The date of the next year's publication is confirmed in the months before.    

The planned release date is announced some months in advance on the dedicated website for the survey. 

The planned publishing date is announced some months in advance of the dedicated website for the survey and the press release is disseminated at the same date. 

Annual

Annual news releases online 18 November 2022 as a press release together with an online tool suitable to extract time series from our statistical databases: Yearly publication on ICT use by individuals 2022

The annual publication on ICT use in households and by individuals is published in the form of statistical news on ICT usage in households and by individuals 2022, report, tables and graphs on the website for the survey, as well as tables in the statistical database.  

The dissemination data can be accessed free of charge in Statistical database Online database 

Survey page with databases: http://www.scb.se/le0108

Microdata are available for scientific purposes at the Statistics Sweden's microdata. 

Facebook's website for Statistics Sweden, Statistics Sweden on Instagram

Not requested

The Methodological Manual used for the survey on ICT usage in households and by individuals are annually compiled by Eurostat in cooperation with Member States. 

There are two methodological documents available at Statistics Sweden's web page, on quality: Description of the quality of the statistics and on production: Description of the production of the statistics.

Not requested

Not requested

The Methodological Manual provides guidelines and standards for implementation of the surveys in the Member States. It is updated every year according to the changed contents of the model questionnaires. 

The survey refers to Sweden's official Statistics (SOS) and therefore special rules apply for quality and accessibility, see the Act (2001:99) and the Ordinance (2001:100) on official statistics  and Statistic's Sweden's regulations FS 2016:17 on quality for official statistics. 

ICT usage statistics have overall good quality. The surveys are considered as reliable sources applying high standards with regard to the methodology. The survey is based on a sample of the population. The results are therefore subject to the usual types of errors associated with random sampling. 

The quality and efficiency are gradually improved through methodological development. Methodological competence is also used to evaluate the official statistics annually. In order to follow out the evaluations, a manual for evaluation support has been produced. 

At European level, the recommended use of the annual Eurostat model questionnaire aims at improving comparability of the results among the countries that conduct the survey on ICT usage in households and by individuals. Moreover, the Methodological Manual provides guidelines and clarifications for the implementation of the surveys in the Member States.

Users are considered to be the most important, who make most use of the data and contribute most to identifying/defining the topics to be covered. The main users of the statistics on ICT usage in households and by individuals are: 

• Statistical users in Eurostat, European Commission, International Telecommunication Unit
• National administrations e.g. The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, National Board of Health and Welfare
• The Ministry of Infrastructure is consulted when deciding which optional and national questions to include in the national questionnaire or if Statistics Sweden believe an issue are of their interest
• Researchers having access to microdata
• End users - including the media - interested in ICT usage in households and by individuals

At European level, contacts within the Commission, ITU and other stakeholders give a clear picture about the key users' satisfaction as the following data quality access: accuracy and reliability of results, timeliness, satisfactory accessibility, clarity and comparability over time and between countries, completeness and relevance. Overall users have evaluated positively (good, very good) the data quality on the ICT usage in households and by individuals. 

Statistics Sweden keeps record of the number of statistical news releases and publications disseminated on its website; the users to whom statistical products are provided as well as the number of requests that are processed every year.
Statistical news releases and tailor-made statistical outputs are on account of their quality, timeliness, and on their ability to meet users' needs. 

All mandatory variables are included in the microdata. 

The data completeness rate stands att 100% of the mandatory variables. 

There are random effects due to sampling. Known systematic effects are mainly due to nonresponse. The nonresponse is higher among younger men, groups with low education, and foreign background. Calibration is used in order to reduce variance and bias due to nonresponse.

There are probably mode effects. The strategy is to encourage response by web questionnaires, this might cause overestimation of the number of people and households with internet and related estimates. It is likely to be marginal since internet penetration is very high in Sweden.

Measurement errors due to the questionnaire design are mitigated by expert desk reviews, and by using register variables (size of household, number of children, income, education, country of birth, country of citizenship, degree of urbanisation).

Coding error might occur for the variable occupation where 39% were manually coded by staff at the agency.

The sampling error reflects the fact that only a particular sample was surveyed rather than the entire population. It is estimated by the standard error and can be expressed by the square root of the estimate of the sampling variance. The estimation of the sampling variance should ideally take into account the sampling design (e.g. the stratification).

Standard error was derived using a program ETOS (Estimation of Totals and Order Statistics) which was designed to compute point- and standard error estimates of totals and order statistics (parameters) from sample surveys as well as rational functions of these parameters. According to ETOS 2.0 User’s guide (2012) the Estimating Equations (EE) technique was used for estimation of the variance of the order statistics, and the Taylor linearization method was used for the variance estimation of non-linear functions like ratios and products. 

ETOS allows the user to calculate Generalized REGression (GREG) - estimates of the parameters that ETOS can estimate. An additional feature is the possibility to calculate calibration weights and the standard errors of the calibration estimates (see Deville & Särndal, 1992).

Estimation method for the random variation of an estimator due to sampling was Taylor linearization.  

The method used to assess the standard errors has been taken into account specific effects: unit non-response and calibration. The variance estimator has been adjusted to take unit non-response into account and methods to account for the effect of calibration on variance has been used according to Deville and Särndal method (1992).

Precision estimates for the question "Individuals having ordered goods or services for private use over the internet in the last 12 months" (individuals who ticked 'Within the last 3 months' or 'Between 3 months and a year ago' in question D1 of the 2022 model questionnaire):

Number of respondents (absolute value for ‘Yes’ answers):   1866

Estimated proportion (in %):   86.4

Standard error (in percentage points): 0.8

Details of the breakdowns are available in the Annex below. 

See more details on non-sampling error below.

The Total Population Register is used as frame for the survey. The source is administrative data from the Tax agency, and the register is updated every night. Over-coverage might occur if persons who emigrated did not report it properly, or if emigration and deaths are reported with delay. Under-coverage occurs for homeless persons and for immigration reported with delay.

Due to the high quality of the Total Population Register is the assessment that coverage errors are insignificant and only have a marginal effect on the estimates. Apart from using calibration as estimation method, no further action was taken to reduce coverage errors.     

The frame covers all individuals registered as living in Sweden, about 10.5 million at the time of the sample selection. The size of the target population, individual 16-85 years old, was about 8.3 million or 79%. 

Not requested in the ICT survey.

1)       Measurement errors:  

Measurement errors are not formally calculated

2)       Questionnaire design and testing:  

The ICT usage in households and by individuals 2021 was designed in line with the European Community Survey on ICT usage in households and by individuals 2022 Model Questionnaire. The questionnaire is subject to desk review by experts.

3)       Interviewer training:  Not applicable

4)       Proxy interview rates: Not applicable

Information about non-respondents:

Persons aged 16-24 and 25-34 and persons with low education are more probable not to answer to the survey than others. 

The unit response rate is the ratio of the number of in-scope respondents (= the number of achieved interviews or the net sample size to the number of eligible elements selected from the sampling frame).

Unit non-response rate for

• Households:   households are not sampled
• Individuals (aged 16-74): 1-(2144/6289)=66%
  

Comments, if any:

1)       Methods used for dealing with unit non-response:  

Statistics Sweden have had a combined data collection using a web-based survey and a paper questionnaire, where the target respondent is the individual of a household, and the survey participation was voluntary.

The combined data collection was done as follows: An introduction letter was sent to the all-sampled individual’s home address, in accordance with the Swedish population-register. Information about the survey and instructions on how to submit the answers the web-based questionnaire was included in the introduction letter as well. Two weeks after sending out the introduction letter, a reminder was sent out to the respondents who have yet not answered the survey. After that, three more reminders were sent, which included the same information as the introduction letter as well as a paper questionnaire that can be submitted if the respondent prefers.

2)       Methods used for minimizing unit non-response: No imputations were made. Calibrations is used in estimation.

3)       Substitution permitted:  No

4)       Substitution rate (in %):  0%

Items with low response rates (observed rates in %):  No item non-response above threshold value for variables where it can be calculated

The questionnaire used for ICT use in household statistics requires some coding performed by the unit's qualified statistics. This measure significantly reduces the risk of coding errors.

Data entry errors may arise even though the application used for data scan of paper forms  contains verification checks to minimise the incidence of these errors.

Not requested for ICT Survey

Length of time between data availability and the event or phenomenon they describe: 235 days

Date of data dissemination by Statistics Sweden: 18 November 2022.

The results of the survey were delivered without delay in relation to the sheduled date. 

The results of the survey were published and delivered without delay in relation to the scheduled date. 

The survey is harmonized with the EU model questionnaire and the data is comparable between regions according to NUTS2. 

Not relevant

Possible limitations in the use of data for comparisons over time: 

There have been some changes but not enough to warrant the designation of a break in series.

Some changes to the methodology have been made in the last couple of years that might limit the comparability over time.

In 2020, the survey went from a mixed mode with a web administered survey / telephone interviews to mixed mode of web / paper survey. At the same time, the total sample sized increased from 2900 to 7000.

In 2021, the calibration vector to include income, education crossed with birth region and region of residence based on degree of urbanization was updated. The former vector had no information on income, education and birth region were separated, and region of residence were based on whether it was in Stockholm, Malmö, or Gothenburg municipally. Furthermore, some further domain variables are now collected from administrative records, namely household size and income.

The length of comparable time series depends on the module and variable considered within each of the modules of the survey.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

All statistics are coherent within the dataset. 

MANDATORY questions in the Eurostat model questionnaire 2022: 

The table 15.4.1 in the annex lists the questions that do not reflect the coverage of subjects and characteristics of Annex 2 of the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/1898 of the 20 July 2021. 

Adoption of OPTIONAL questions and items in the Eurostat model questionnaire 2022:

The table 15.4.2 in the annex lists the optional questions from the annual Eurostat model questionnaire 2022 included in the national questionnaire and their coverage for age groups beyond the standard scope. 

Additional questions introduced in the national questionnaire:  There were no additional questions in questionnaire 2022.

Effects of deviations from the routing used in the Eurostat model questionnaire:  

All statistics are coherent within the dataset

Preliminary data is not published and at the Statistics Sweden, there is currently no internal policy governing revisions that occur for all statistics produced. 

Any revisions to the data would be described in detail in the methodological sheet accompanying statistical news releases. 

Not relevant

The source of the raw data is described with more details in the paragraphs below.

The Total Population Register is used as frame for the survey. The source is administrative data from the Tax agency.

The survey is stand-alone survey and participation in the survey is absolutely voluntary.  

The sampling design is a probability design. The sample is a simple random sample of persons from the frame between 16 and 74 years of age. 

The sampling unit is an individual member of the population sampled from the frame population which is based om The Total Population Register (TPR): The TPR contains information about the population and its changes, and to a large extent reflects the content of the population register of the Swedish Tax Agency.

The frame population has been devided up into 12 mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups , or strata which are based on age and gender. Participants were chosen from each stratum separately. The total sample size was divided among the strata using proportional allocation, and as a result, large strata receive more sample, whereas small strata receive less sample. A single stage stratified probability sampling is applied. 

Only one, selected from the target population individual is interviewed in the household. 

Annual

1) Methods used to gather data: The combined data collection was used with a web-based survey and a paper questionnaire, where the target respondent is the individual of a household, and the survey participation was voluntary.

2) Short description of the survey method: The combined data collection was done as follows: An introduction letter was sent to the all-sampled individual’s home address, in accordance with the Swedish population-register. Information about the survey and instructions on how to submit the answers the web-based questionnaire was included in the introduction letter as well. Two weeks after sending out the introduction letter, a reminder was sent out to the respondents who have yet not answered the survey. After that, three more reminders were sent, which included the same information as the introduction letter as well as a paper questionnaire that can be submitted if the respondent prefers. 

3) Variables completed from an external source: Household size, income, education and birth region are collected from administrative records from The Total Population Register (Tax agency) which is also used as frame for the survey.

Data are checked for consistency through a cross-checking exercise against different variables within the survey and against the same variables from previous years.

Not applicable

For the target indicator "Individuals having ordered goods or services for private use over the internet in the last 12 months" (individuals who ticked 'Within the last 3 months' or 'Between 3 months and a year ago' in question D1 of the 2022 model questionnaire):

Imputation rate (% of observations): 0%

Imputation rate (share of estimate): 0%

Methods used to impute item non-response: None

Grossing up procedures have been applied to: Individuals 

Model assisted population inference technique is used to gross upp the individuals in the net sample to the population. The frame is divided in mutually exclusive strata, that covers the population.

Description of the weighting procedures: 

A sample is selected independently in each strata and design weights are calculated as the inverse of the selection probabilities.

Auxiliary variables that are available for the entire sampling frame which assumed to be well correlated with the unknown response probabilities are found.

One of the ETOS procedures involving GREG-estimator and aggregated population totals of the auxiliary variables is applied to conduct calibration of weights which are supposed to be helpful to gross up the individuals in the net sample to the population as well as reduce the non-response bias.

Se Deville & Särndal (1992) for more details regarding calibration estimators in survey sampling and the procedures used to derive the calibration weights

Not relevant

Not relevant