Survey on Living Conditions (UDB IT SILC) (2013)

The structure of the household data file (file “H”) is incorrect: the file contains an identical record for each household, duplicated for the number of its members (44,622 cases), instead of a single record for each household (18,487 cases). Pending a new release from the source, it is recommended to delete duplicate cases and keep only one case for each household ID (variable ‘HB030’).

 

The EU-SILC project (European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, EU Regulation, 2003) is one of the main sources of data for EU periodic reports on the social situation and the spread of poverty in the member countries. This is a sample survey on households for the analysis of income distribution, welfare and quality of life of families, as well as economic and social policies at national and/or European level.
Italy participates in the project with the survey on living conditions (UDB IT SILC), conducted every year since 2004, providing both cross-sectional and longitudinal (households remain in the sample for four consecutive years) statistics. The income data refer to the calendar year previous to the survey, while data on the families’ living conditions reflect the status detected at the time of the interview.
At the household level is detected the following information:

• characteristics of the house in which he lives: dwelling or neighborhood problems; condominium maintenance fees; charges for heating, water, gas, electricity, sanitation, telephone; housing expenses incurred for ordinary and extraordinary repairs, contributions to the costs incurred; possession of goods (washing machine, TV, refrigerator, car, etc.); housing tenure
• rent and subletting: the amount of the rent; type of contract; difficult to pay the rent; presence of public support contributions
• home ownership: the presence of a mortgage and its features
• economic situation: the presence of one or more loans from banks and/or financial companies; chance to go on vacation; opportunity to buy meat, chicken or fish, ability to deal with unexpected expenses; difficult to get to the end of the month with the available income; presence of forms of income support (family benefits, maternity); income from rent and work; presence of hard economic times; help (economic and otherwise) by other persons; use of social card
• incomes from young people under 16 years in the household

At the individual level is detected the following information:

• Education: degree; attend training
• health: health status; presence of chronic diseases; the presence of limitations in activities performed routinely; need for visits to the dentist and/or emotional medical specialist, and why not visit
• employment and unemployment: employment status; if he does not work, what activities he carried out to look for work; looking for a full or partial time job; minimum monthly income to what would be willing to work
• main job (or work performed in the past): profession; career field; type of contract; working and/or contract changes in the last year; hours worked; years of work and pension contributions; professional status for each month in the reference year
• goods and services by the employer: free accommodation; expenses refund for supplies; lunch vouchers; car or other vehicle; other personal expenses
• self-employment: spending power; gain, draw or loss over the previous year; income from royalties; maternity allowance and/or parental leave
• statement of income: employment/self-employment income (including additional fees); income from Co.Co.Co. and Co.Co.Pro. contracts; retirement income; income from disability payments, accidents at work; unemployment benefits; layoff gains; scholarships; family allowances
• other information: payment of allowances to ex-spouse/ex-partner or children; voluntary pension plans; presence of savings and how they are invested; income from land or buildings; IMU; completion of the tax return
• personal goods and leisure activities: availability of new clothes and shoes; conducting leisure activities (cinema, concerts, sports, etc.); use of public transport
• Wellness: degree of satisfaction with their lives, with their own economic situation, with the house in which they live and with their work; time taken to travel to work; degree of satisfaction with the leisure time at its disposal, with personal relationships, with available services; state of mental health; degree of trust in institutions

In order to optimize the time of use of the dataset (exclusively distributed from ISTAT for not member users), UniData offers a service of convertion from ASCII format to the main statistical software format (SPSS, Stata, R or SAS). For detailed information visit the Services for Istat Data page.

Keywords: consumptions, employment, house, income, inequality, labour, poverty, unemployment