Definition: a person has excessive housing costs if they are part of a household where total housing costs exceed 40% of disposable income. Housing allowances are not considered here.

Housing costs refer to monthly expenses related to the right to live in a dwelling. Only actually paid housing costs are considered, regardless of who covers them. This includes expenses such as structural insurance, mandatory services and charges (e.g. sewerage and rubbish collection), regular maintenance and repairs, taxes and the cost of utilities (water, electricity, gas and heating). For homeowners, the housing allowance calculation includes mortgage interest net of any tax deductions and without housing subsidies. For tenants, the calculation includes rent payments gross of rent subsidies. For owners and tenants, this means that rent subsidy may not be deducted from total housing costs (Eurostat, 2024).

The data used here on the excessive housing costs are based on the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey, with income data that relate to the year preceding the survey year. This means, for example, for the survey year 2020 that in the calculation of this indicator the incomes of 2019 were used, which were not affected by the Covid-19 crisis (Statbel, 2021a).

Statbel organises this EU-harmonised survey in Belgium and makes the results available, in particular to Eurostat. 2004 is the first year for which European harmonised data have been collected in order to calculate the indicator. 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 has to be taken into account. This margin of uncertainty increases as the indicator is calculated on smaller sub-populations. The confidence intervals are available on request from Statbel.

From 2019 onwards, the methodology of the survey has been thoroughly revised for better accuracy. Therefore, the data collected until 2018 are not comparable with those collected from 2019 onwards. 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, 2021b). Therefore, they are not used to calculate and evaluate the long-term trend. It should also be noted that due to the widespread use of temporary unemployment during the covid-19 pandemic, the category of 'unemployed' in SILC 2021 includes not only the long-term unemployed, but also persons who have been temporarily unemployed for more than 6 months and who are generally living in less precarious conditions (Statbel, 2022).

Goal: the share of the population with excessive housing costs must be reduced to zero per cent by 2030.

The Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 include target 11.1: “By 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums”. The share of the population with excessive housing costs should tend to zero.

The Federal Long-Term Strategic Vision for Sustainable Development includes the following objective: “The preconditions for the well-being of citizens will be met, i.e. (...) decent housing” (introduction of the challenge A society promoting social cohesion; Belgian Official Gazette, 08/10/2013).

International comparison: the share of the population with excessive housing costs is just below the European average in Belgium. Between 2010 and 2023, this indicator fell from 10% to 8.9% for the EU27 and from 8.9% to 7.7% for Belgium. When Member States are divided into three groups, Belgium is part of the group with average performance and outperforms the European average in 2023. In that year, Cyprus ranked first with 2.6% and Greece last with 28.5%.

UN indicator: the selected indicator does not correspond to any SDG indicator, but is related to target 11.1 since housing affordability is one aspect of it.

Sources

• General

  • SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: United Nations (2015), Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, document A/RES/70/1.

  • Indicators: United Nations (2017), Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, document A/RES/71/313.

  • UN Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

  • UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators website: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/ (consulted on 18/01/2023).

• Specific

  • Belgian Official Gazette: http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi/welcome.pl; research on http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/doc/rech_f.htm (consulted on 24/09/2020).

  • Eurostat (2024), Glossary:Housing cost overburden rate, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Housing_cost_overburden_rate (consulted on 18/01/2024).

  • Statbel (2021a), Chiffres clés 2021, p. 31, https://statbel.fgov.be/fr/nouvelles/chiffres-cles-2021 (consulted on 10/12/2021)

  • Statbel (2021b), SILC FAQ, https://statbel.fgov.be/fr/themes/menages/pauvrete-et-conditions-de-vie/faq, see in particular "Y a-t-il des ruptures de séries dans la chronologie de l'enquête SILC ?" (consulted on 19/11/2021)

  • Statbel (2022), Risk of poverty or social exclusion - SILC-indicators 2019-2021, https://statbel.fgov.be/sites/default/files/files/documents/Huishoudens/10.7%20Inkomen%20en%20levensomstandigheden/10.7.1%20Armoederisico/Publication_Silc_STATBEL_ENG.xlsx (consulted on 15/06/2022)

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