Statistics on Household Consumer Expenditures. 2024

In 2024, the average consumption expenditure of Catalan households was 37,409 euros per household.

According to the characteristics of the main breadwinner, in terms of level of education the highest average expenditure was in households where the main breadwinner had higher education at 42,568 euros, which is 13.8% higher than for Catalan households as a whole. In contrast, households in which the main breadwinner had at most primary education posted an average expenditure of 27,983 euros, 25.2% lower than for all households. The lower expenditure of this latter group of households is mainly due to expenditure on goods and services that are not basic necessities, which was 44.5% lower than the average for all households.

By nationality, households where the main breadwinner was of non-European foreign nationality had a lower average level of expenditure (27,402 euros per household, 26.8% lower than for all households) than households where they were of European origin (33,575, 10.2% lower than for all households). The average expenditure of households in which the main breadwinner was of Spanish nationality stood at 39,081 euros per household, 4.5% higher than for all households.

Meanwhile, households with a woman as the main breadwinner had an average expenditure per household that was 11.8% lower than for Catalan households as a whole. In the case of basic necessities, average expenditure was 8.6% lower than for all households and for other goods it was 16.0% lower. By contrast, when the main breadwinner was a man, average expenditure per household was 6.5% higher than for all households: 4.8% higher for basic necessities and 8.9% higher for other goods.

The largest expenditure group was housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels with an average expenditure per household coming to 12,733 euros, accounting for 34.0% of total expenditure. The other groups representing more than 5% of total expenditure were food and non-alcoholic beverages at 5,706 euros (15.3% of the total), transport at 4,055 euros (10.8% of the total), restaurants and accommodation at 3,184 euros (8.5%) and leisure, sports and culture at 2,115 euros (5.7%).

Basic necessities, which are made up of food and non-alcoholic beverages; clothing and footwear; housing, water, electricity, gas, etc. and furniture, household furnishings, etc., accounted for 57.1% of average household expenditure.

The data published in 2024 include the population figures from the Population and Housing Census 2021. This change implies a break in the data series published up to 2022, which hinders uniform comparisons. This edition also includes the new United Nations International Classification of Consumption known as ECOICOP 2018 (European Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose), which replaces the classification that had been used since 2016. Idescat plans to revise the data published prior to 2023 over the course of 2026 based on the new population estimates drawn from the Population and Housing Census 2021 and the new ECOICOP 2018 Classification.