S.14 Households

The households sector consists of individuals or groups of individuals as consumers and market producers, in case households’ business activities cannot be separately classified under the nonfinancial corporations sector. The households sector also includes individuals or groups of individuals as market producers of goods and certain services for own final use.

Households receive wages and salaries, property income and transfers from other sectors and entrepreneurial income from their business activities.

Households as consumers are defined as individuals or groups of persons who share the same living accommodation, who pool their income and wealth and who consume certain types of goods and services collectively, mainly housing and food.

The principal income of households consists of:
• Compensation of employees;
• Property income;
• Transfers from other sectors;
• Receipts from the disposal of market products;
• Imputed receipts from the output of products for own final consumption.

The households sector includes:
• Individuals or groups of individuals whose principal economic activity is consumption;
• Persons living permanently in institutions who have little or no autonomy of action or decision in economic matters (e.g. long-term patients in institutions, old people, prisoners, etc.). Such people are treated as a single institutional unit; a single household.
• Individuals or groups of individuals that produce goods and services for exclusively own final use. These services include only services of owner-occupied dwellings and domestic services produced by paid employees.
• Sole proprietorships and partnerships without independent legal status – other than those treated as quasi-corporations – which are market producers;
• Non-profit institutions serving households, which do not have independent legal status or those which do but are of only minor importance.

The households sector is subdivided into the following sub-sectors:
• Employers and own-account workers (S.141);8
• Employees (S.143);
• Recipients of property income (S.1441);
• Recipients of pensions (S.1442);
• Recipients of other transfers (S.1443).

Households are allocated to sub-sectors according to the largest income category (compensation of employees, entrepreneurial income, etc.) received by the household as a whole. If this information is not available, the criterion can be the income of a person or persons defined as a reference person or persons 9. [0]

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