Information Note on the Household Budget Survey 2022-2023

Household Budget Survey Information Note

The Household Budget Survey (HBS) which collects detailed information on household expenditure, has been conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) since 1951.

Households from across the country are randomly selected to take part and are asked to keep a detailed notebook of household expenditure over 14 consecutive days. Households are also asked for detailed information on all sources of household income and expenditure on items such as mortgages, rent and utility bills. The spending data collected from households is anonymised, which means no one will ever be identified from the data that is collected.

The data is used to measure the cost of living in Ireland. The main reason the survey is conducted is to ensure that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the official measure of inflation, continues to be based on up-to-date and accurate household expenditure. The details recorded in the notebook also give the CSO better information on what goods and services should be included in the basket of goods which is used to calculate the Consumer Price Index and helps us to accurately track changing spending habits over time.

Break in Series and Comparison with Previous Iterations

The implementation of a framework regulation in 2021 (Regulation 2019/1700), designed to provide a unified legal basis for the collection of social statistics from persons and households in sample surveys, results in a re-definition of a household. Previously, in defining a ‘household’, HBS used an ‘address’ concept (i.e. all persons living at the same address and sharing catering arrangements were treated as a single household). From 2022-2023, the HBS definition of a household uses a shared income and expenditure concept. Flat mates or housemates that do not share expenditure and income are now considered as separate households. For example, in the 2022-2023 HBS, three people who lived in a rented accommodation and who did not share their income and expenditure, were treated as three separate households. If the total weekly rent for the accommodation was €600 and each person paid €200 per week in rent, then the reported weekly rent for each ‘household’ was €200. In the 2015-2016 HBS these three tenants would have been considered as one household and the reported weekly rent would have been €600. In addition, students living in student specific accommodation and substantially supported by their parents are considered members of their parents’ household. Due to these changes, caution is advised when making comparisons with previous iterations of the HBS. The changes in distribution of expenditure over time as outlined in Chapter 2 are for illustrative purposes only.

Sample size and Classifications

The field work for the survey was conducted over the period 2022-2023. Challenges were encountered in getting households to participate in the survey. There were also difficulties in recruiting and retaining survey interviewers. This resulted in a lower achieved sample size than in previous iterations of the survey. Consequently, results cannot be published for some classifications at the usual level. Classifications that have been affected include income, region, tenure, principal economic status of household reference person, household composition, and household size. For the same reason, the number of expenditure items listed in tables on our open data site, PxStat, has been reduced.

It is worth noting that the HBS has moved from a five-year cycle and is now collected on a continuous basis. More than 6,000 households are randomly selected to take part in this survey each year. This change in collection method means, from 2025, we can produce annual high-level results from the HBS. More commentary on the annual HBS is available in the Press Release.

The HBS collects income data based on the 12-month period prior to the date of interview (i.e. floating reference period). Given the floating income reference period for HBS, income data relates to a 24-month period.

Definition of Household Reference Person

Previously, the household reference person was the person whose name the accommodation was owned or rented. Where the mortgage/rent was jointly paid, the respondent with the highest income was taken as the reference person. In cases where household members received an equal income, the eldest member was taken as the reference person. In HBS 2022-2023, the household reference person is the person who contributes most to the total income of the household.