Household income by socio-occupational category

Abstract

Accounts by socio-occupational category are a very good example of the relationship between macro-economic data based on the national accounting system and micro-economic data obtained from household surveys. Every five years since 1956 French statisticians have tried to break down the household income account into eight subgroups according to the socio-occupational category to which the head of household belongs. They use more than 150 distribution keys coming from various household surveys (health, housing, consumption) and from a specific “taxable income survey” conducted especially with the income tax authorities for this purpose and thought to provide better information than an ordinary household survey.

The expectations of users and technological advances in data analysis and collection have stimulated new developments: (i) an updating method has been implemented to produce more recent accounts; (ii) income accounts are also calculated according to family size and income level; (iii) alternative definitions of disposable income can be evaluated, such as discretionary income and pre-allocated income, broadening the concept of disposable income by including the counterparts of the individualized final consumption expenditure of Government bodies.