A four page newsrelease by Eurostat published on June 19th, 2008 presents the Household Budget Survey for 2005 in the EU27.
Greeks’ household budget by consumption categories looks like this:
18.9% goes to food, beverages & tobacco
Romania: 50% (top)
EU27: 19.4%
Luxembourg: 11% (bottom)
7% goes to clothing & footwear
Malta: 8.3% (top)
EU27: 5.7%
Bulgaria: 3.1 (bottom)
30.2% goes to housing *
Bulgaria: 37.7% (top)
EU27: 33.1%
Romania: 19.4% (bottom)
5.9% goes to health
Portugal: 6.1% (top)
EU27: 3.4:%
UK: 1.2% (bottom)
10.4% goes to transportation
Malta: 16.6% (top)
EU27: 11.9%
Bulgaria: 5% (bottom)
3.8% goes to communications
Hungary: 6.5% (top)
EU27: 3.3%
Italy & Luxembourg: 2.2% (bottom)
4.2% goes to recreation & culture
Austria: 12.5% (top)
EU27: 8.4%
Bulgaria: 2.9% (bottom)
2.4% goes to education
Cyprus: 4% (top)
EU27: 1%
Finland: 0.2% (bottom)
8.6%: goes to restaurants & hotels
Portugal: 10.8% (top)
EU27: 5.3%
Romania: 1.1% (bottom)
It makes you wonder, how can we (Greeks) be spending such a big percentage on “education” and “health”. Aren’t they supposed to be for free? Isn’t that the reason for all those strikes in education and health in order to preserve their public nature? Our percentages are the second largest after Cyprus for “education” and after Portugal for “health”. Sounds strange to me or maybe not…
Another point worth commenting is the percentage we spend on “restaurants & hotels” (i guess mpouzoukia is included here too 
) which is greater than “education” and “recreation & culture” together. For the later (recreation & culture) we share with Romania the position right above the bottom. Nice…
* includes: water, electricity, gas & other fuels, equipment, maintenance, etc.
July 2, 2008 at 19:21 |
You know how I love to comment on these things. Greeks admit to spending much more on private healthcare because they “don’t trust” public health institutions. They’re also under the impression that if you pay, it must be better. There is absolutely no evidence to support that, but this is the motivation behind it.
There was also an article published recently that noted 30 percent of vacancies at universities aren’t filled because students eligible for those spots don’t get the minimum scores. Passing is 50 percent. Can you imagine not being able to score 50 percent to have a free education? Good Lord. In most countries around the world, 50 percent is failing! It makes me wonder what the scores were for the 70 percent that did get in.
Plus, I believe students can stay at university for 10 years to finish a single degree (they wanted to shorten it to 8 years, and riots started), thus prolonging their childhood and delaying working adulthood. Maybe there are education costs because parents are paying for a standard of living to support kids who are taking forever. Or maybe that falls under recreation and restaurants, since you know there’s some clubbing and taverna expenses. Hard to say.
July 2, 2008 at 22:26 |
You are very right, and you are well informed. However, I must say that I do not want to go in to a detailed discussion about those issues (especially education) cause I will be very critical of the current situation. But most likely (I’m 99% sure) the largest amount of money for education refers to the money spent during junior high school and high school for extra tutoring in preparation for the final exams (to enter the university). After that there are expenses too, but those are common to every European country (of course Greece once again
makes the difference on the duration of studies as you pointed out).