Quarterly sector accounts - households

Data extracted on 28 July 2020.

Planned article update: October 2020.

Highlights

In the first quarter of 2020, the household saving rate increased to 16.8 % in the euro area and up to 15.8 % in the EU-27 (highest levels since the beginning of the series)

In the first quarter of 2020, the household investment rate decreased to 8.7 % in the euro area and down to 8.5 % in the EU-27

Household saving rate, seasonally adjusted - 2020 first quarter
Source: Eurostat

This article focuses on a selection of indicators on quarterly sector accounts for households in the European Union (EU) and the euro area. Covered are, among others, the household saving rate and the household investment rate. Another article focuses on quarterly sector accounts for non-financial corporations, covering, among others, the business investment rate and the profit share of non-financial corporations.

Full article

The highest household saving rates in both the EU-27 and the euro area

The household saving rate in the euro area (EA-19) was 16.8 % in the first quarter of 2020, compared with 12.5 % in the previous quarter. In the EU-27 the household saving rate was 15.8 % in the first quarter of 2020, compared with 11.5 % in the fourth quarter of 2019. This is the highest saving rate recorded and the largest increase observed in comparison with the previous quarter of both the EA-19 and the EU-27 since the begining of the series in 1999.

These data come from a detailed set of seasonally adjusted^[1]quarterly European sector accounts released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union and the European Central Bank (ECB).

Figure 1: Household saving rate, seasonally adjusted - 2020 first quarter
Source: Eurostat

Household investment rate still at low levels in the EU-27 and euro area

In the EU-27, the household investment rate was down to 8.5 % in the first quarter of 2020, compared with 8.7 % in the fourth quarter of 2019. In the euro area, the household investment rate was down to 8.7 % in the first quarter of 2020, compared with 9.0 % in the previous quarter.

Figure 2: Household investment rate, seasonally adjusted - 2020 first quarter
Source: Eurostat

In the euro area in the first quarter of 2020, in nominal terms, household income ^[2] increased by 0.8 % while both consumption and investment (gross fixed capital formation, mostly in dwellings) decreased by 3.2 %.

Figure 3: Nominal growth of household adjusted gross disposable income, actual final consumption and gross fixed capital formation (euro area) (seasonally adjusted data, change compared with the previous quarter) - 2020 first quarter
Source: Eurostat

Data sources

The compilation of the European sector accounts follows the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010) and covers the period from the first quarter of 1999 onwards.

Institutional sectors bring together economic units with broadly similar characteristics and behaviour, namely: households (including non-profit institutions serving households), non-financial corporations, financial corporations, government and the rest of the world. In the latter, to measure the external transactions of the euro area / EU, it is necessary to remove cross-border flows within the area concerned.

The ECB and Eurostat publish integrated non-financial and financial accounts, including financial balance sheets, for the euro area. Eurostat also publishes the non-financial accounts of the European Union.

Eurostat's website includes detailed annual sector accounts by country and derived key indicators, which also include the indicators that combine non-financial and financial accounts such as debt-to-income ratios.
The full set of quarterly sector accounts is published for euro area / EU aggregates. Quarterly sector accounts data are also available for most of the European Economic Area (EEA) Member States in the Eurostat database, and a subset of quarterly key indicators is published around 102 days after each quarter at Quarterly data. The EEA members whose GDP is below 1% of the EU total do not have to transmit the quarterly accounts of households to Eurostat.

The European Union (EU-27) consists of 27 Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden plus the EU institutions.

The euro area (EA-19) consists of 19 Member States: Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland, plus the European Central Bank and European Stability Mechanism.

Source data for tables and graphs

The detailed tables are available here.

Direct access to

Notes

↑ Seasonal adjustment has been performed using the Tramo-Seats method. The seasonally adjusted series are built up indirectly as the sum of seasonally adjusted components.
↑ In this article, household income / consumption refer to the adjusted gross disposable income / actual final consumption of households including the value of goods and services (e.g. in education and health) financed by government. The amount of goods and services financed by government are recorded under 'social transfers in kind'.

[1] Seasonal adjustment has been performed using the Tramo-Seats method. The seasonally adjusted series are built up indirectly as the sum of seasonally adjusted components.

[2] In this article, household income / consumption refer to the adjusted gross disposable income / actual final consumption of households including the value of goods and services (e.g. in education and health) financed by government. The amount of goods and services financed by government are recorded under 'social transfers in kind'.

[1]

[2]