Quarterly sector accounts - households
Data extracted on 28 July 2021.
Planned article update: 29 October 2021.
In the first quarter of 2021 the household saving rate went up to 21.5% in the euro area and up to 21.0% in the EU
In the first quarter of 2021 the household investment rate was nearly stable at 9.2% in the euro area and stable at 8.9% in the EU
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. A similar 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.
Household saving rate up in both the euro area and the EU
The household saving rate in the euro area (EA-19) was 21.5 % in the first quarter of 2021, compared with 19.4 % in the previous quarter. In the EU the household saving rate was 21.0 % in the first quarter of 2021, compared with 18.5 % in the fourth quarter of 2020.
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).
Household investment rate stable in both the euro area and the EU
In the euro area, the household investment rate was nearly stable at 9.2 % in the first quarter of 2021, compared with 9.1 % in the previous quarter. In the EU, the household investment rate remained stable at 8.9 % in the first quarter of 2021, compared with the fourth quarter of 2020.
In the euro area in the first quarter of 2021, in nominal terms, household income [2] increased by 1.5 % while consumption decreased by 0.5 %. Investment (gross fixed capital formation, mostly in dwellings) increased by 2.0 %.
.png)
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 sequence of accounts 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 and annual 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) 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, the European Stability Mechanism and the European Financial Stability Facility.
Source data for tables and graphs
The detailed tables 
are available here.
- National accounts, see:
- National accounts (ESA 2010) (na10)
- Quarterly sector accounts (ESA 2010) (nasq_10)
- Key indicators (nasq_10_ki)
- Non-financial transactions (nasq_10_nf_tr)
- Quarterly sector accounts (ESA 2010) (nasq_10)
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'.