Enquiries, Sources – Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC)Overview

Short description	SILC (Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) is a representative survey of households in Switzerland. This instrument aims at studying poverty, social exclusion and living conditions on the basis of indicators that can be compared at the European level. It is collecting on an annual basis timely and comparable multidimensional micro-data on income, housing condition, labour, education and health. Every year, both cross-sectional data (pertaining to a given time or a certain time period) and longitudinal data (pertaining to individual-level changes over time, observed periodically over a four year period) are collected.
Responsible agency	Swiss Federal Statistical Office
Responsible service	Income, Consumption and Living Conditions
Responsible person and information	Dr. Dominique Aubert, 032 713 64 92, dominique.aubert@bfs.admin.ch, Stéphane Fleury, 032 713 64 48, stephane.fleury@bfs.admin.ch Information on FSO surveys for science and research: Communication Portal for Accessing Social Statistics (COMPASS)
Conducted by	Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in conjunction with M.I.S. Trend S.A., Lausanne
Legal basis	Swiss federal ordinance of 30 June 1993 on federal statistical surveys (RS 431.012.1)
Type of enquiry	Random survey of households. The SILC survey is conducted by phone using a sample of about 7,000 households and 17,000 people. Households are selected at random from the FSO's register of private telephone connections. The persons who participate in the survey are interviewed for four consecutive years.
Statistical basis and units of enquiry	Permanent resident population in private households. Social exclusion and housing condition information is collected at household level while labour, education and health information is obtained for persons aged 15 and over.
Features registered	Base module: Demographic data Income (at household level and at personal level) Social exclusion (arrears, material deprivation, physical and social environment) Housing (dwelling type, housing conditions, housing costs) Education Labour Health (health status, access to health care) Values and satisfaction Social network Childcare Yearly modules: 2007: Housing conditions 2008: Over-indebtedness and financial exclusion 2009: Material deprivation 2010: Intra-household sharing of resources 2011: Intergenerational transmission of disadvantages
Degree of regionalisation	Switzerland and major regions
Date survey conducted	Year prior to the survey (income)
Date of survey	March to July
Periodicity	Annual
Available since
Statistical quality of data	Quality criteria established by the European Union for the EU-SILC surveys apply.
Last Update	15.12.2010

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