Household Budget Survey (HBS)

Since 1998, the Central Bureau of Statistics, in co-operation with county offices competent for official statistics, has carried out the Household Budget Survey based on the representative sample. The Survey is in line with the EU methodological recommendations and international standards and classifications. The purpose of the Household Budget Survey is to provide a description of living conditions of individual households, that is, a picture of height and structure of financial and natural consumption of a household, according to the characteristics of a household, such as income, socio-economic characteristics, number of household members, etc. The structure of consumption is observed according to the international classification COICOP-HBS (Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose adopted for the Household Budget Surveys). In a limited sense, the Survey aims at obtaining data for calculation of weights that are used for measuring of consumer price indices as well as of final household consumption, which represents a part of the system of national accounts. The Survey data are also used for the calculation of poverty indicators as well as for the estimation of the tourist consumption of domestic population in preparing the Tourist Satellite Accounts. The methodology of the Household Budget Survey covers only private individual households in the Republic of Croatia, that is, excluded is the population residing in institutions, boarding schools, prisons, hospitals as well as consumption made by foreign tourists. The Survey is conducted as an annual survey and data are being collected for 12 months. In Croatia, as well as in most countries, this period corresponds to the calendar year. The conduction of the Survey is continuous and interviews on the field are carried out in the course of a year in 26 two-week intervals. Interviewers conducted the Survey in selected dwellings using three types of questionnaires. Data for most consumption issues were collected by an interview. Those referring to food, beverages and tobacco were obtained from a diary kept in a household for 14 days.