1.  The Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) survey is an annual enquiry conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) among persons residing in private households in Malta and Gozo. This survey is carried out under EU regulation (EU. No. 1177/2003). The main scope of this survey is to enable the compilation of statistics on income distribution and indicators on monetary poverty. SILC also serves to produce reliable quantitative information on social exclusion and material deprivation.

2.  Definitions:

The gross household income includes:

●  Gross employee cash or near cash income;
●  Gross non-cash employee income (only company car and associated costs included);
●  Gross cash benefits or losses from self-employment (including royalties);
●  Unemployment benefits;
●  Old-age benefits;
●  Survivors’ benefits;
●  Sickness benefits;
●  Disability benefits;
●  Education-related allowances;
●  Income from rental of property or land;
●  Family/Children related allowances;
●  Social exclusion not elsewhere classified;
●  Housing allowances;
●  Regular inter-household cash transfers received;
●  Interests, dividends, profits from capital investments in unincorporated business;
●  Income received by people aged under 16;
●  Income received from individual private pension plans.

The total disposable income of a household is calculated by deducting:

● regular inter-household cash transfers paid,
● tax on income, and,
● social insurance contributions.

from the total gross household income.

Equivalent household size is calculated according to the “modified OECD” equivalence scale which gives:

●  a weight of 1.0 to the first adult;
●  a weight of 0.5 to any other household member aged 14+;
●  a weight of 0.3 to each child.

The resulting figure, which is the sum of these weights, is attributed to each member of the household.

Equivalised disposable income (referred to also as national equivalised income) is defined as the household’s total disposable income divided by its “equivalent size”, to take account of the size and composition of the household, and is attributed to each household member. For example a household with 2 adults and 2 children aged less than 14, would have an equivalised household size of (1+0.5+0.3+0.3) = 2.1. If the total disposable income earned by the household is €20,000, then the household equivalised income would result in (€20,000/2.1) = €9,523.

The at-risk-of-poverty threshold is also referred to as the at-risk-of-poverty line or, simply, the poverty line. This is equivalent to 60 per cent of the median national equivalised income of persons living in private households.

The at-risk-of-poverty rate refers to the share of persons with an equivalised disposable income below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold.

Following the 2021 Population and Housing Census, NSO introduced a new sampling frame of households and individuals which was used for the first time EU-SILC as from 2023. In addition, EU-SILC was benchmarked with updated demographic estimates derived from this census. NSO ran several tests which revealed little impact of statistical significance on the core EU-SILC indicators. Consequently, it was concluded that revisions on past time series data were not necessary. NSO still feels appropriate flagging these methodological changes, primarily because they may influence the interpretation of changes in household and individual counts in EU-SILC 2023, when compared to previous years.