The Portuguese Household Budget Survey: A Review and Recommendations for Data Collection

Abstract

This work aims to provide an insight into the Household Budget Survey in Portugal, and within the European Statistical System, and in other countries, and provide actionable recommendations for the upcoming methodological revision of the Household Budget Survey in Portugal. The HBS is revised at 5 year intervals, and is currently done in the form of a traditional proxy survey with an SRS reflecting Portuguese households. A systematic literature review exploring the current state of the HBS and challenges and trends in this space is used to this end, looking at trends such as the increasing use of administrative and non-traditional data sources in surveying. This is then followed by a broader benchmarking review of the Portuguese HBS that is interdisciplinary in scope, in which topics such as data linkage and the transition to administrative data sources are covered, and recommendations for a gradual transition to the increased usage of administrative data sources such as tax data and social payments data is proposed.