Income and living conditions

Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Social Statistics Department / Living standard statistics unit

Milana Rakića 5, Bеlgrade

silc@stat.gov.rs

+381 11 2412922  ext. 242, 363

The aim of the survey is to collect comparable data on people at risk of poverty or social exclusion, income distribution and monetary poverty, living conditions and material deprivation. Data are used to obtain structural social indicators at the level of the Republic of Serbia and are internationally comparable.

The EU-SILC results are produced in accordance with the relevant international classification systems.

The main classifications used are:

• ISCED 2011 for the level of education
• ISCO 08(COM) for occupation
• NACE Rev. 2 for economic activity.

Not applicable.

A household means any family or other community of persons who live together and jointly spend funds for meeting their basic life needs (food, housing, etc.), regardless of whether all members are permanently at the place where the household resides or some of them temporarily reside in some other place in the country or abroad on account of work, education or for some other reason.

Household type classification is constructed by reference to the numbers of adult members, their age and gender, and the numbers of dependent children living with them.

Type of household:

1. Total
2. All households without dependent children
3. Single person household
4. One adult male
5. One adult female
6. One adult older than 65 years
7. One adult aged between 0 and 64 years
8. Two adults, no dependent children, younger than 65 years
9. Two adults, no dependent children, at least one aged 65 years and over
10. Three or more adults, no dependent children
11. All households with dependent children
12. Single parent with a least one dependent child
13. Two adults with one dependent child
14. Two adults with two dependent children
15. Two adults with three or more dependent children
16. Three or more adults with dependent children

“Dependent children” relate to all persons under the age of 18, as well as persons aged from 18 to 24, living with at least one parent, and being economically inactive.

Equivalised disposable income is the total household disposable income evenly distributed among the members of the household according to the modified OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) equivalence scale. In accordance with this scale, first adult member of the household receives the value of 1, other adults aged 14 and over 0.5, and children under the age of 14, 0.3. Household income does not include income in kind.

The most frequent activity  refers to the activity status which the person had for at least 7 months during the reference period. It is calculated for the persons aged 18 and over.

The following classification of most frequent activity status is established:

1. Employed
2. Employees
3. Employed persons except employees
4. Not employed
5. Unemployed
6. Retired
7. Other inactive

The work intensity of the household refers to the number of months that all working age household members have been working during the income reference period as a proportion of the total number of months that could theoretically be worked within the household. The work intensity is defined as very low (0-0.20), low (0.20-0.45), medium (0.45-0.55), high (0.55-0.85) and very high (0.85-1). For example, low work intensity refers to households whose working-age members worked between 20% and 45% of the total number of months they could have possibly worked during a referent period.

The material deprivation of a household is an indicator of the material conditions that influence the quality of life of the household.

The material deprivation items are:

1. inability of the household to keep its home adequately warm,
2. inability of the household to afford the washing machine,
3. inability of the household to afford a car,
4. inability of the household to afford paying for one week annual holiday away from home,
5. inability of the household to afford unexpected financial expenses,
6. inability of the household to afford a telephone,
7. inability of the household to afford a colour TV,
8. inability of the household to afford a meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day,
9. being in arrears with mortgage or rent payments, utility bills, hire purchase instalments or other loan payments.

Households and household members.

EU-SILC survey includes households on the territory of the Republic of Serbia (permanent residents).

Every household chosen according to the sample plan is a survey unit.

The survey does not cover collective households (hospitals, prisons, monasteries, boarding schools, etc.). 

Republic of Serbia

Since 1999, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia doesn't dispose of certain data for AP Kosovo and Metohia, so they are not contained in the data coverage for the Republic of Serbia (total)

Data are available for the period from 2013. 

Not applicable.

Indicators are reported as rates and dinars (RSD).

EU-SILC uses the following reference periods:

• The income reference period is the previous calendar year.
• The reference period for material deprivation is the day of the interview.
• Childcare reference period - the childcare reference period shall be a typical (usual) week around the interview. 

National legislation:

• Official Statistics Law
• Resolution on the Programme of official statistics
• Regulation on the Plan of official statistics for the current year

Not applicable.

Data confidentiality is stipulated by:

• Official Statistics Law (Official Gazette of RS, number 104/2009), Articles 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49.(www.stat.gov.rs/media/2322/zakon_o_statisticie.pdf)
• Rulebook on statistical data protection in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia
  (www.stat.gov.rs/media/2343/rulebook-on-statistical-data-protection-in-sors.doc ) 
• Guidelines on measures of data and information protection in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia
  (www.stat.gov.rs/media/2341/guidelines-on-measures-of-data-and-information-protection-in-the-sors.doc )

Need to protect individual data is an extremely important issue. The results of the survey are published as aggregates, thus securing full confidentiality of information about households and individuals, according to the provisions of the Law on Official Statistics. Statistical micro-databases that are released for use for scientific research purposes contain reduced information about the respondents in order to prevent identification of the surveyed individuals or households.

Calendar of releases is available at SORS website:

http://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/calendar

The data obtained through statistical surveys are released at: 

• the internet presentation (http://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/) 
• in the database (http://data.stat.gov.rs/?caller=SDDB&languageCode=en-US)
• in statistical releases and publications (http://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/publikacije/)

Annual

SILC data are published annualy in release “Poverty and Social Inequality".

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia publishes the following publications:

• Statistical release PD10 “Poverty and Social Inequality”

The publications can be accessed through the link: http://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/publikacije

SILC data are available in an online dissemination database of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia and are located in section  Household budget Survey, Income and living conditions Survey / Income and living conditions: https://data.stat.gov.rs/?caller=SDDB&languageCode=en-US

Eurostat also disseminates EU-SILC statistics on Eurostat’s website, which can be accessed through the link: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/income-and-living-conditions/data/database

Detailed guidelines of EU-SILC (Doc 065 Description of target variables: Reconsiled files) can be found on:

• https://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/istrazivanja/methodology-and-documents/?a=01&s=0
• EU-SILC Guidelines
• Methodological Paper on EU-SILC datasets (Detailed description of indicators)
• EU-SILC methodology Wiki

Not applicable.

SORS is working on improving the quality of the SILC by implementing the following EU regulations:

• Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 June 2003 concerning Community statistics on income and living conditions adopted on 16 June 2003
• Regulation CE 1980/2003 on definitions published in the OJ on 21 October 2003
• Regulation CE 1981/2003 on fieldwork aspect and imputation procedures published in the OJ on 21 October 2003
• Regulation CE 1982/2003 on sampling and tracing rules published in the OJ on 21 October 2003
• Regulation CE 1983/2003 on the list of target primary variables published in the OJ on 7 November 2003
• Regulation CE 28/2004 on the content of intermediate and final quality reports published in the OJ on 5 January 2004

According to Regulation on 'Quality Reports' (28/2004), along with the data, SORS transmit SILC quality reports to Eurostat, in which the accuracy, coherence and comparability of the data is analysed.

SILC quality reports for the Republic of Serbia are available on European Commission website: European Commission - CIRCABC

Documents are located in section Eurostat > EU-SILC > Quality assessment > Quality reports

On biennial basis (once in two years), by the means of web interview, implemented is the User Satisfaction Survey. The survey results are available at SORS website: http://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/o-nama/sistem-upravljanja-kvalitetom.

Like in any sample survey, the statistics generated from the SILC data may be liable to errors which are inherent in the survey method used. Usually, a sample of households is selected in a way that the probability of a household being selected is known. In this way, the results can be reliably projected from the sample to the household reference population with known levels of precision, i.e. standard errors and confidence intervals for survey estimates can be constructed.

Annual data are published once a year. Data gathered for year N are published by mid-October of year N+1 (where N = year of data collection).

The data is published on time and in accordance with Statistical calendar.

The most important source against which data obtained through the Income and Living Conditions Survey can be compared is the Household Budget Survey (HBS). Considering that these are totally different instruments, with different methodologies, sources and even sometimes definitions, overall coherence is quite acceptable.

SILC is an annual survey conducted by the SORS to obtain information on income and poverty indicators for the population, different types of households, etc. The HBS also provides information on income, in relation to their household consumption expenditures.

Income data in the Income and Living Conditions Survey are recorded for the previous calendar year, while in the Household Budget Survey, this information refers to the month preceding the interview. As a result of different reference periods and definitions that are not fully harmonized, income data from these two sources are not directly comparable. 

Тhere is very good internal data coherence.

SILC fieldwork organization, along with training interviewers and using CAPI method for collecting data, is aimed at minimizing non-response rate and total length of interviewing household. Average interview duration is about 60 minutes.

The main principles and standards of the revisions of released statistical data are defined by the General Revision Policy of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia:  https://www.stat.gov.rs/media/2332/general-revision-policy.docx

• general rules of revisions of the published data
• forms of informing users as regards the possible causes of revisions
• categories of revisions
• documents covering all aspects of revisions

Тhe sampling frame is the The Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in the Republic of Serbia, carried out in 2011. Тarget population consists of all persons living in private households in the Republic of Serbia . Persons living in collective households and in institutions are generally excluded from the target population.

Annually.

Data collection in the EU-SILC survey is conducted face-to-face, using laptop computers (CAPI method).

During initial interviews logical control in CAPI application is implemented to reduce as much as possible the number of errors in data entry. Complete logical control of fieldwork materials is then performed in the central database located on the server of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia by statisticians. At the end data is submitted to Eurostat for validation, together with detailed quality report.

Not applicable.