Staff Housing Survey - Dienstbezüge der Beamten

The Staff Housing Survey (SHS) is organised by Eurostat amongst staff of international organisations in various duty stations in the European Union Member States.

These surveys are implemented in the context of the wider work done to compare the relative cost of living of international civil servants between their place of employment and the reference city, Brussels.

They are distinct from the separate Family Budget Surveys. The SHS questionnaire is shorter and focuses upon residential dwellings and mobility behaviours. Countries are generally covered simultaneously rather than on a rolling cycle. 

These surveys are organised every 5-7 years and participation is voluntary. However, it is very important that staff take the time to provide accurate answers to the questions, as the results will have a direct impact on the calculation of rent PPP, which are a key component to calculate global correction coefficients.

The following table summarises the source of dwelling preference weights used to calculate rent PPP for each duty station. Note: Taper weights for the six-year model represent average mobility pattern across all duty stations.

Note : If there is an insufficient number of replies to enable a robust statistic to be established for an individual duty station, pool weights are used, combining replies for duty stations where the number of replies is insufficient.

A harmonised online questionnaire is used for this survey, hosted by Eurostat. All participants have access to the same questionnaire.

Staff of the following organisations are invited to participate :

• EU institutions and EU agencies (COMM, PARL, CONS, ECJ, ECA, etc); EIB and  ECB are invited to participate, although they do not have the same terms and conditions of employment
• Organisations with linked terms and conditions of employment (European Schools, EuroControl, European Patent Office, European Southern Observatory, etc)
• Coordinated Organisations (OECD, NATO, CoE, ESA, ECMWF, EUMETSAT), together with ISRP 
• United Nations agencies, in collaboration with ICSC
• Other international organisations (eg. EFTA, CERN, etc)
• Member State diplomatic embassies and consulates

if possible, the survey is launched simultaneously amongst all participating organisations.

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• German