Household final consumption expenditure

Unlike household disposable income, sub-annual microdata are not available for household
consumption expenditures. Therefore, the distributed estimates of household final consumption expenditures (HFCE) are compiled by applying the latest available annual distributions to the aggregate quarterly HFCE at the product category level.

This approach assumes that all households equally adjusted their spending in the year. For example, if total household spending on traveler accommodation fell by 75% in the second quarter of 2020, then the distributions of HFCE assume that all households, irrespective of their socio-economic characteristics, decreased their respective spending on traveller accommodation by 75%. While this assumption may hold true for some categories of household spending, such as those where the pandemic restricted or discouraged overall consumption (e.g. air fares, restaurants, hotels, entertainment etc.), it may be less true for other categories of spending where different types of households may have changed their spending in diverse ways (e.g. food, alcohol, clothing, etc.).

Users should be mindful of this limitation when drawing conclusions about the sub-annual distributions
of HFCE as well as household savings and household actual final consumption (two indicators which
include HFCE).