About

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About this dashboard

  • Title: Saving behaviour of Austrian households
  • Number: 1/2020
  • Date: 28 January, 2020
  • Author: HFCS Team, OeNB (Austrian Central Bank) & Katharina Drescher
  • Data: HFCS Austria 2017


What we do

  • This dashboard is the second in our series of Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) dashboards.
  • Each dashboard is designed to provide concise information on a specific topic.
  • All information displayed - be it figures, tables or text - is based on HFCS data.


Who we are

  • We are the HFCS team of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB).
  • As such, we are tasked with collecting and analyzing data on Austrian households’ finances and consumption.
  • For more information on the HFCS in Austria, visit our website for the HFCS Austria.
  • For general information on the Eurosystem’s HFCS, visit the website of the ECB’s Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN).


How to contact us

Find out more by clicking on the Question tab!

Question

Question

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Question

Which households in Austria save, to what extent and what are their saving motives?


Main definitions

Saving rate (SR): percentage of a household’s disposable income that is not consumed in a given period

  • \(SR =\frac{\text{saving amount + loan repayment}}{\text{disposable income}} \times 100\)
  • Example: If your disposable income is EUR 1500, and you decide to spend EUR 1200 on consumption, then the amount saved is EUR 300. Hence, the saving rate is 20%.

Marginal propensity to consume (MPC): share of additional income which is spent on consumption

  • \(MPC =\frac{\text{change in consumption}}{\text{change in disposable income}}\)
  • Example: Suppose you unexpectedly receive EUR 500. You spend half of the additional amount, and you save the remaining EUR 250. Hence, the marginal propensity of consumption will be 0.5.


Main background facts for Austria

  • Besides inheritances and gifts, saving forms a major source of private wealth.
  • Almost one third of Austrian households say that they do not save regularly.
  • The mean saving rate amounts to 11.3%, the average amount of money saved is around EUR 390 per month in Austria.
  • Generally, the higher the household’s income, the higher the savings.
  • Low-income households need a higher share of their income for consumption. Therefore, they save less in absolute terms and relative to their income.

For detailed information on the methodology, please refer to the methodological notes and the results for Austria.

Column

Households who save

Households who do not save

Find out more by clicking on the Answer tab!

Answer

Answer

To what extent do Austrian households save?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

We first look at the distribution of the saving rate.

The chart shows the distribution of the saving rates across households. Households are shown according to their savings rate from low to high.

The graph displays that approximately 80% of all households have a saving rate below 20%. Only 5% of all households have a saving rate above 35%.

The mean saving rate and mean saving amount per month of Austrian households are as follows:

All households Households, who save (69%)
Saving rate 11.3 16.4
Amount saved per month (in EUR) 390 560

How is the saving rate distributed across Austria?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

The map shows the saving rate of households across Austrian federal states. The corresponding values are as follows:

Federal states Saving rate
Vorarlberg 15.5
Tyrol 13.5
Salzburg 14.4
Upper Austria 12.5
Carinthia 14.1
Styria 11.7
Burgenland 10.2
Lower Austria 10.5
Vienna 7.8

The saving rates differ strongly between federal states.

Households in the Western part of Austria have higher saving rates than households in the Eastern part of Austria. Households in Vienna have a saving rate of 7.8%, whereas the saving rate in Vorarlberg is almost twice as high.

What are the primary saving motives for Austrian households?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

The bar chart shows the primary saving motives for Austrian households.

For about 52% of households, precautionary saving is the most important motive.

Also saving for old-age provision, education/ support of children and grandchildren, holiday and the purchase of property are relevant for Austrian households.

How do the saving motives differ by income decile?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

For all income deciles, precautionary saving is their most important saving motive. While more than 60% of the lowest-income households report that precautionary saving is the most important saving motive, the corresponding amount for the top 10 income group is only 40%.

The share of households regarding the purchase of a property as main residence, the education/support for children, and old-age provision as the most important purpose of saving increases with income.

The share of households stating that holiday/travel is the primary saving purpose first increases and then decreases with income.

How much of an unexpected windfall gain would Austrian households spend on goods and services?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

The marginal propensity to consume is measured with the question: “Imagine you unexpectedly receive money from a lottery, equal to the amount of income your household receives in a month. What percent would you spend over the next 12 months on goods and services, as opposed to any amount you would save for later or use to repay loans?”.

Such a windfall gain is relevant in the Central Bank context and often - if provided by a central bank as a measure of unconventional monetary policy - referred to “Helicopter Money”.

The histogram shows the distribution of household responses to this question.

Most answers are concentrated at three points of the distribution. People would either save almost everything, spend almost everything or spend approximately half of the unexpected windfall gain.

On average, Austrian households would spend 47% of their net income.