Dwellings without adequate heating (i34)

In 2022, 5.1% of the population in Belgium declare that they could not heat their dwellings adequately. To achieve the sustainable development goal by 2030, this figure must be reduced to zero percent. This objective will not be reached by continuing the trend between 2008 and 2022 (assessment of November 2023). The proportion of the population that cannot heat their dwelling adequately is therefore developing unfavourably.

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Dwellings without adequate heating - Belgium - trend assessment

percentage of population

 2000200820102015201820192020202220252030
observations--6.45.65.25.23.9--5.1----
trend and extrapolation (November 2023)--6.36.15.34.74.54.34.03.73.4
objective 20300.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.0

break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic

Statbel; Eurostat (2023), European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), ilc_mdes01, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat (consulted on 27/09/2023); calculations FPB.

Dwellings without adequate heating - Belgium and international comparison

percentage of population

 200820102013201520182019202020222018//20082018//20132022//20192022//2010
Belgium6.45.65.85.25.23.94.15.1-2.1-2.29.4-0.8
EU27--9.910.89.67.66.97.59.3---6.810.5-0.5
//: Average Growth Rates

break in series: BE 2019; BE 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic

Statbel; Eurostat (2023), European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), ilc_mdes01, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat (consulted on 27/09/2023).

Dwellings without adequate heating by region - Belgium

percentage of population

 20192020202120222022//2019
Brussels-Capital Region7.07.35.67.94.1
Flemish Region1.61.81.92.211.2
Walloon Region7.27.35.89.59.7
//: Average Growth Rates

The margin of uncertainty for this indicator is indicated in the text for the latest year. Break in series: 2019; data collection 2020 impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic

Statbel (2023), direct communication, 07/03/2023.

Dwellings without adequate heating by sex - Belgium

percentage of population

 200820102013201520182019202020222018//20082018//20132022//2019
females6.85.95.85.55.64.24.05.1-1.9-0.76.7
males6.05.25.94.94.83.74.25.1-2.2-4.011.3
//: Average Growth Rates

break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic

Statbel (2023), direct communication, 07/03/2023.

Dwellings without adequate heating by household type - Belgium

percentage of population

 200820102013201520182019202020222018//20082018//20132022//2019
single person10.49.811.77.37.55.76.06.8-3.2-8.56.1
single person with dependent children16.413.315.112.312.88.28.012.4-2.4-3.214.8
two adults3.63.83.52.53.02.51.93.3-1.8-3.09.7
two adults with one dependent child4.53.13.04.43.12.94.23.3-3.70.74.4
two adults with two dependent children4.02.52.44.02.12.42.22.3-6.2-2.6-1.4
two adults with three or more dependent children5.94.96.35.38.45.17.08.43.65.918.1
//: Average Growth Rates

break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic

Statbel; Eurostat (2023), European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), ilc_mdes01, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat (consulted on 26/10/2023).

Dwellings without adequate heating by income - Belgium

percentage of population

 200820102013201520182019202020222018//20082018//20132022//2019
quintile 115.614.517.013.816.411.712.311.90.5-0.70.5
quintile 27.67.86.37.55.94.55.26.5-2.5-1.413.2
quintile 35.83.53.52.92.32.01.43.7-9.1-8.623.0
quintile 41.61.01.80.91.41.21.02.8-1.4-5.733.2
quintile 51.41.00.60.80.20.30.70.8-15.9-16.832.0
//: Average Growth Rates

break in series: 2019; 2020 data collection impacted by Covid-19 pandemic

Statbel, Eurostat (2023), EU-SILC2008 ? 2022; Statbel (2023), direct communication, 07/03/2023.

Definition: this indicator measures the share of the population that reports being unable to heat their dwellings adequately. The data on this indicator are based on the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey of the European Union. Statistics Belgium organises this EU-harmonised survey in Belgium and makes the results available, in particular to Eurostat. The data used here come from Eurostat, which publishes detailed and comparable results between EU Member States. Since these data are based on a survey, a margin of uncertainty should be taken into account. The confidence intervals for these data are available on request from Statistics Belgium.

Due to changes in the SILC survey in 2005 and 2008, the data are presented here only from 2008 onwards.

From 2019 onwards, the survey methodology has been thoroughly reviewed for better accuracy. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic impacted data collection. This makes it difficult to compare the results of SILC 2020 with those of previous years. (Statbel, 2021). Therefore, they are not used to calculate and evaluate the long-term trend.

Goal: the share of the population that reports being unable to heat their homes adequately must be reduced to zero per cent by 2030.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 7.1: “By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services”. Being able to heat one's home is part of the access to affordable energy. The share of the population that reports being unable to heat their homes adequately should tend towards zero.

The Federal Long-Term Strategic Vision for Sustainable Development contains objective 21: “Energy services will be affordable for everyone", which is consistent with the SDG (Belgian Official Gazette, 08/10/2013).

International comparison: this indicator is slightly higher in Europe than in Belgium. In the EU27, this indicator fell from around 10% in 2010 to 6.9% in 2021 but rose again in 2022 to 9.3%, while in Belgium it reached 5.1% in 2022. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with average performances in 2022 and performs better than the European average. In that year, Finland ranked first with 1.4% and Bulgaria last with 22.5%.

UN indicator: the selected indicator does not correspond to any SDG indicator, but is related to target 7.1 since heating a dwelling is part of modern energy services to which the population must have access.

Sources

More information is available in French and Dutch.