Structure of Household Expenditures in Slovakia and Relations Between its Categories

Household income is one of the basic indicators of the living standard of population in countries or regions. The income indicator is inextricably linked to the household expenditure indicator, whose structure also indicates the living standards of households. The development of income and expenditures of Slovak households has been affected by many events over the last decades (fulfilment of the Maastricht criteria, accession of the Slovak Republic to the EU, adoption of the euro currency, economic crisis). The category of gross cash expenditures, net cash expenditures or consumption expenditures may be used to assess household expenditures. Based on the classification by individual consumption by purpose (COICOP), the expenditures are divided into 12 basic categories. The development of individual categories of expenditures, however, should be analysed separately as there is no long-term balanced relationship between them.