Households (S.14)

2.75 Definition:

The households sector (S.14) covers individuals or groups of individuals as consumers and possibly also as entrepreneurs producing market goods and non-financial and financial services (market producers) provided that, in the latter case, the corresponding activities are not those of separate entities treated as quasi-corporations. It also includes individuals or groups of individuals as producers of goods and non-financial services for exclusively own final use (see paragraphs 3.20, 3.25 and 3.30).

Households as consumers may be defined as small groups of persons who share the same living accommodation, who pool some, or all, of their income and wealth and who consume certain types of goods and services collectively, mainly housing and food. The criteria of the existence of family or emotional ties may be added.

The principal resources of these units are derived from the compensation of employees, property income, transfers from other sectors or the receipts from disposal of market products or the imputed receipts from output of products for own final consumption.

2.76 The households sector includes:

  1. individuals or groups of individuals whose principal function is consumption;
  2. persons living permanently in institutions who have little or no autonomy of action or decision in economic matters (e.g. members of religious orders living in monasteries, long-term patients in hospitals, prisoners serving long sentences, old persons living permanently in retirement homes). Such people are treated as comprising, together, a single institutional unit, that is, a single household;
  3. individuals or groups of individuals whose principal function is consumption and that produce goods and non-financial services for exclusively own final use; only two categories of services produced for own final consumption are included within the system: services of owner-occupied dwellings and domestic services produced by paid employees;
  4. sole proprietorships and partnerships without independent legal status – other than those treated as quasi-corporations – which are market producers;
  5. non-profit institutions serving households, which do not have independent legal status or those which do but are of only minor importance (see paragraph 2.88).

2.77 The households sector is subdivided into six sub-sectors:

  1. employers (including own-account workers) (S.141 + S.142);
  2. employees (S.143);
  3. recipients of property incomes (S.1441);
  4. recipients of pensions (S.1442);
  5. recipients of other transfer incomes (S.1443);
  6. others (S.145).

2.78 Households are allocated to sub-sectors according to the largest income category (employers' income, compensation of employees, etc.) of the household as a whole. When more than one income of a given category is received within the same household, the classification must be based on the total household income within each category.