First results of the fourth wave of the Belgian Household Finance and Consumption Survey

The Household Finance and Consumption Survey seeks to gain a better understanding of the diversity of financial situations among households in Europe. The latest survey findings in Belgium show that Belgian households had higher income levels before the COVID-19 crisis than they did three years earlier. Wealth, measured at the time of the pandemic, had also gone up on the previous survey’s results, driven to some extent by higher house prices. Yet, the extraordinary circumstances brought by the pandemic may also have prevented some of the most vulnerable households from taking part in the survey.

Debt has remained sustainable in general, although there are still some pockets of risk, particularly among the most vulnerable households. The latter seem to have been the worst hit by the crisis too. Nevertheless, these first results do not point to any increase in inequality compared to the previous wave of the survey, which referred to the situation in 2017.