| The indicator is calculated on the basis of information obtained from the EU-SILC survey.
EU-SILC survey (European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) is a constant survey (conducted every year) whose subject are households and persons aged 16 and more in households. The survey is a panel study, i.e. selected group of respondents is subject to several rounds of “observation” at intervals, so that it allows to observe and analyze the changing situation, attitudes, behaviour or opinions of a surveyed group. Survey is conducted by face-to-face interview techniqueusing 2 questionnaires; one of which is used to obtain data on households, and the second to obtain data on individuals.
The purpose of EU-SILC survey is to obtain information which allows the assessment of living conditions of Polish society and allows to compare them to the living conditions in other countries of European Union. This is achieved by adoption of a uniform methodology by Eurostat.
At current requests of European Union authorities, module surveys devoted to selected issue are also conducted within EU-SILC survey (that is an additional questionnaire proceeded together with the basic survey).
Central Statistical Office of Poland implemented EU-SILC survey in 2005.
The survey unit is a household, which is understood as the persons who may be related or unrelated, living together and maintaining themselves jointly (multi-person household). Household can also be formed by one individual maintaining himself/herself independently, regardless of whether the individual lives alone or with other persons (one-person household).
The following poverty thresholds are used for calculating the poverty scope:
• relative poverty threshold – 50% of the mean expenditure determined at the level of all households,
• “legal” poverty threshold – income per 1 person in household which, according to the Law on Social Assistance, provides eligibility for a monetary benefit from social assistance,
• extreme poverty threshold – the subsistence minimum estimated by Institute of Labour and Social Studies (IPiSS), the subsistence minimum covers only those needs which satisfying cannot be postponed and consumption below that level leads to a biological destruction.
In order to eliminate the impact of the socio-demographic composition of household on the maintenance costs, the so-called original equivalence scale has been used for the calculation of the households’ expenditure level and determination of poverty thresholds (relative and subsistence minimum).
According to this scale:
• weight 1 is attributed to the first person in the household at the age of 14 and over,
• weight 0,7 — to any other person at that age,
• weight 0,5 — to every child under 14.
And thus, for instance, the relative poverty threshold for a 4-person household consisting of two adult persons and two children is 2,7 times as high as that for a 1-person household. |
