Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, carries out a Household Budget Survey (HBS) every two years (within the framework of the EU-HBS). These contain detailed data on mean household expenditure for the whole of Belgium, of which a selection for 2012 and 2018 is presented in Table 5. Separate overviews for the Flemish, Brussels-Capital and Walloon Regions are also available, but these do not contain the same level of detail.
Between 2012 and 2018, there is a decrease in the mean household expenditure on books and press — which is primarily an effect of less expenditure on press — and audiovisual equipment and accessories — but not with regard to musical instruments, which remains stable. We also see a drop in the shares of radio and television subscriptions and costs for material for information processing (such as laptops) in the budgets of Belgian households.
By contrast, cultural services take on a larger share in 2018, with a clear increase of mean household expenditure on tickets and subscriptions for cinema, theatre and concerts, and even a doubling of the expenditure on museums, libraries and parks.
Table 5: Mean household cultural expenditure in Belgium by expenditure purpose, 2012 and 2018
Items (Field/Domain) | Mean household expenditure (in million EUR and percentage of total) | Average per capita expenditure (EUR) | ||||
2012 | % | 2018 | % | 2012 | 2018 | |
I. Books and Press | 409 | 1.15 | 352 | 0.98 | 173 | 157 |
Books | 146 | 0.41 | 139 | 0.39 | 62 | 62 |
Press | 160 | 0.45 | 122 | 0.34 | 68 | 54 |
II. Cultural Services | 260 | 0.73 | 291 | 0.81 | 110 | 130 |
Cinema, theatre and others | 78 | 0.22 | 125 | 0.35 | 33 | 55 |
Museums, libraries, parks and similar | 20 | 0.06 | 40 | 0.11 | 8 | 18 |
Photographic services and other | 17 | 0.05 | 20 | 0.06 | 7 | 9 |
III. Audiovisual equipment and accessories | 370 | 1.04 | 225 | 0.63 | 157 | 100 |
Support for recording image, sound and data | 107 | 0.30 | 64 | 0.18 | 45 | 28 |
Audiovisual equipment and accessories | 43 | 0.12 | 33 | 0.09 | 18 | 15 |
Musical instruments | 15 | 0.04 | 14 | 0.04 | 6 | 6 |
IV. Subscriptions of television, information processing | ||||||
Rental and subscriptions of radio and television | ||||||
Subscriptions of radio and television | 122 | 0.34 | 72 | 0.20 | 52 | 32 |
Rental of cultural equipment and accessories | 3 | 0.01 | 0.3 | 0.00 | 1 | 0.15 |
Information Processing and Internet | ||||||
Material for information processing | 162 | 0.46 | 88 | 0.25 | 69 | 39 |
Mobile devices | 63 | 0.18 | 61 | 0.17 | 27 | 27 |
Mobile and Internet services | 925 | 2.61 | 1 011 | 2.83 | 393 | 450 |
Source:
Statbel, Household Budget Survey (2019)
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